


So You'll Aim Towards the Sky

by hotot



Series: Nymesis [3]
Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Biotics, Cerberus is Evil, Companionable Snark, Consent, Crime Fighting, Drama, Ensemble Cast, F/M, Female Character of Color, Idiots in Love, Interspecies Relationship(s), Interspecies Sex, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Nonbinary Character, Other, POV Alternating, PTSD, Past Child Abuse, Personal Growth, Poor Life Choices, Porn with Feelings, Queer Friendly, Romance, Rough Sex, Slow Burn, Suicidal Thoughts, Survivor Guilt, Trust Issues
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-26
Updated: 2016-11-15
Packaged: 2018-05-23 10:28:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 33
Words: 178,955
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6113692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hotot/pseuds/hotot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Smartass biotic freelancer Nym Shepard has deep hatred of slavers and a secret past: she's the estranged ward of Aria T'Loak, Omega's Pirate Queen. From this ridiculous premise emerges a woman who could change the Galaxy forever... if she can keep it together long enough to join the fight. </p><p> <b>Rewrite in progress. Please forgive the continuity errors during this process. It might take a while. Status: Chapters 1/36 ~ On hold.</b></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prodigal

**Author's Note:**

> **General A/N (I talk a lot sorry)**
> 
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> -Read the tags! If there is anything in particular that I think needs a content warning, I will leave an A/N at the start of the chapter. If you find something that should probably have a content warning that I missed, feel free to let me know in a comment or by email at  bunfork@gmail.com. 
> 
> -This fic is safe for queers. [I do not bury my gays](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BuryYourGays). This Is Important To Me. Also there is a nonbinary trans character who uses non-binary pronouns (ze/hir). Weaver is genderqueer.
> 
> -If you want to know more about this AU Shepard, check out Part 1 of Nymesis for her origin story, "[Aria's Girl](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5982328/chapters/13747558)." You don't have to read it to understand what's going on in Aim, but it provides a lot of context. There may be continuity errors between the two stories.
> 
> -Aim related art here: [[x](https://asari-tears.tumblr.com/post/146560145660/asari-tears-merhelv-commission-for)] [[x](https://asari-tears.tumblr.com/post/148328492260/onemooncircles-asari-tears-awesome-archangel)] [[x](http://1nfiltratrix.tumblr.com/post/151825395162/even-more-sheps-this-time-featuring)] [[x](http://1nfiltratrix.tumblr.com/post/152584426497/commission-asari-tears-nym-shepard-and)]
> 
> -Thank you to everyone who has taken a moment to subscribe, bookmark, or leave kudos or a comment! It might seem like a small thing, but I love feedback and as a writer it is so appreciated and encouraging! You make my freakin' day every time. :D

_Oh that I was where I would be,_  
_Then I would be where I am not,_  
_Here I am where I must be,_  
_Go where I would, I can not_

_-"Katie Cruel," by Karen Dalton_

 

**2184 CE: Omega**

**Shepard**

The _Plain Jane_ dropped from lightspeed with an ugly lurch, as if the little corvette-class starship was startled by what suddenly and completely filled its front viewport. 

Omega Station loomed from within a haze of malevolent orange, a mushroom cloud frozen in time just after an atomic detonation. It looked exactly the same as it had four years prior, the last time Nym Shepard had seen it through the _Jane’s_ viewport… except now she was coming, instead of going.

Shepard uncrossed her ankles and dragged them from where they rested on the arm of the empty co-pilot’s chair. Her armored boots hit the deck plating with a thud, and she spun sharply in the Captain’s chair, unfurling from her low slouch to face the controls. She took a deep breath. Her neck itched under the high collar of her asari-made commando leathers, and she tugged at the constricting material. 

“Haven’t even landed and you’re already feeling claustrophobic,” she muttered to herself. “Steady girly.” Her eyes slipped from the on screen view to the diagnostic readouts on her ship’s controls as she entered the asteroid field around the old mining station. 

A thought spread like poison along old familiar pathways of memory.

 _Home_. 

She ignored a series of frantic, half formed thoughts regarding her motivation and her sanity, questions that tore at her mind like tiny, wild things with sharp teeth, and focused on the really important question of the day: where was she going to park the _Jane_?

Shepard could have radioed ahead and reclaimed her ship’s old berth, nestled along one of Omega’s outer arms with Aria T’Loak’s private fleet, but Shepard didn’t want to let Omega’s Pirate Queen know she was back in town just yet. Honesty, she’d rather not have Aria know she was _ever_ there. 

Unfortunately, Aria didn’t let a vorcha sneeze go unnoticed on her station, which was really quite a feat because, well… vorcha didn’t sneeze. 

At least Shepard’s little corvette would be easy to squeeze into a berth for personal crafts without so much as an eyebrow raise. Her ID scambler listed the craft as a civilian transport called the _Apate,_ out of the local and unremarkable refueling stations and merc nests orbiting Imorkan, so she’d slip past the radar and get a few days of orientation time without Aria demanding an audience. At least for now, because, as Nihlus used point out, Shepard had the all the subtlety of a vorcha’s sneeze. 

Nym wasn’t sure if that meant she possessed _incredible_ subtlety, or if she leaned more towards walking disaster. A sneezing vorcha, a paradox, impossible woman. Really it meant that she wouldn’t be able to keep up stealth mode for long. Nihlus always made fun of her for it, but… damn if he wasn’t as subtle as an elcor ass himself. 

No. If he _hadn’t been_ subtle.

The _nerve_ of him.

A little bead of anger welled in her chest, and she sniffed, shoved it down and away towards the collection of other beads of feeling she’d been collecting in the three months since his death.

_Stupid, trusting Nihlus on Eden Prime, with a bullet in his brain._

She flicked on the comm, the tight humor in her voice a sharp contrast to the bitter barb in her chest. 

“All passengers, this is your Captain speaking. Making the approach to Omega now. Get in your crash seats and hold on tight. We’re taking the _Apate_ for a little joy ride before all our fun is over.”

Damn but she hated lying about the name of her ship. _Our little secret, old girl._

She heard someone slam a fist into the wall between the tiny bridge and engineering, where she kept her passengers. 

“Easy on the goods!” She bellowed back, not bothering with the comm. She didn’t _actually_ need it. She just liked hearing her voice amplified over loudspeakers sometimes. 

“Can it, Shepard, and get our boots on the ground,” a muffled voice hollered back. “Our bounty’s not gonna wait politely for us to take a tour of the asteroid field.” 

“Krogan,” she huffed to herself. “Never any fun in close quarters, or when creds are on the line.” 

“I heard that!” Her passenger roared. 

She rolled her eyes, took a deep breath, and hit the big red button on her console. It was more of a medium sized, orange toggle switch, actually, but the combined feeling of doom and satisfaction was the same as hitting a big red “do not press” button keyed to the codes for a nuclear detonation. No going back now. She keyed in the code for Dial-A-Dock, one of the hundreds of private air traffic control companies that held little pieces of Omega’s docking infrastructure as tightly as any gang held their inner-station territory, and waited until the channel opened.

“Dial-A-Dock, where your docking needs and protection needs are our business,” came a bored asari voice. It sounded like they were chewing gum.

“Requesting flight path clearance, and a docking location,” she said into the comm.

“Commercial or private?” came the bored reply. Shepard heard a faint _pop_ and a smack. “Commercial. Working transport.” Shepard snapped back. 

“Transporting what? Anything to declare.” 

“Passengers. _Willing_ passengers. No slaves, no Sand. And _no_ eezo.”

“Gang affiliation?” 

“Unaffiliated. I’ve got two freelancers aboard,” she replied with an eyeroll, twirling her finger in a slow, limp wristed circle through the stale air of her ship as if it might speed up the docking process. 

“Verifying ID codes.” 

There was a pause, and Shepard held her breath. There was always that moment where her ID scrambler might not pass a close enough inspection. 

“ _Apate._ Terran origin, corvette-class starship. You’re clear to dock...” came the bored reply from the flight controller. “Don’t forget to pay your fees.”

Something started to itch between her shoulderblades, but her console beeped with the docking information, and she glanced at the info. Dial-a-dock controled hangers near Gozu, adjacent to the human ghetto, not far from Afterlife, and Lem’s noodle stand. Not a bad strategic location, though it was going to be a bit of a hike from there to her old hanger.

Shepard locked in her approach vector and took manual control of the ship, feeling the weight of the controls as the VI gave way. Suddenly she was not just a passenger on the tin can that passed for her ship but the pilot, and the little thrill that _flying_ always gave her raced down her spine as the _Jane_ responded to the slightest adjustment of her controls, good old girl she was.

The approach to Omega happened gradually, until it didn’t. The _Jane_ churned her way through the black and Shepard silenced the warbled warning of proximity sensors as she dodged chunk after endless chunk of frozen space rock. The old station’s arms reached out to the _Jane_ at a mind-bending angle from this approach, above them and to the left, as if someone had felled a giant, twisted tree and it was in the process of topping endlessly into void.

But there were just moments to ponder the shape of the station, the way it loomed like a threat, because then she was within the arms like a sudden embrace, space traffic mingling with local shuttles that darted in endless, haphazard streams, no central traffic control to create order. 

Omega was trying to kill visitors before they even got boots on the ground.

“Fat chance of that,” Nym muttered, as her berth game into view. She eased the _Jane_ into the wide docking bay, and hit the landing thrusters adjusting as she watched her 3D readouts she set down with a bit of a bump. No need to rely on the crude, ancient looking docking mags on a little ship like the _Jane._

Shepard grabbed her duffle and opened the door to engineering.

Her two passengers were busy unbuckling from crash seats that lined the room. The krogan was green and tan, scarred and battered, with bright yellow eyes and a towering hump that mde Nym think he was about 600 or 700 years old. The older human woman was black, her cool, deep skin marred by a bad burn across half her face, leaving the skin mottled with pinkish scar tissue. Her hair was a short shock of cropped curls, tighter and thicker than Nym’s reddish spiraling waves, and was shot with gray at the temples. Both wore battered armor and simply bristled with weapons.

“Welcome to Omega, dear passengers,” Shepard said, and punched the door controls to the airlock with her fist. The krogan and the human followed her into decontamination, toting gear. Shepard’s gear amounted to one bag off personal effects and three firearms. She checked on of her guns, the heavily modified Wraith while she waited for decon to cycle, letting her fingers play lovingly over the chrome plating around the curve of the barrel, checking the heat sink and her thermal clip. The shotgun gleamed its perfection, drinking in the low light as if it thrived on it, and Shepard swallowed the sudden tightness in her throat.

The Wraith was the best gift she’d ever received. Illegal in Council space, designed just for her, direct from Spectre requisitions, customized with ultralight alloys... it was the only gun like it in existence.

Damn armor was too tight around her neck again at the thought of Nihlus’ self-satisfied grin as he’d placed the gun case in her hands, the deep chuckle she’d startled out of him with her yelp of glee when she’d opened it. Four years had passed since that moment, and she still it was like he’d been grinning and laughing at her just yesterday. 

“Thanks for the lift, Shepard,” the woman said, as decon cycled the airlock open, and a ladder yawned down to the hangar floor, ten feet below.

“Sure, Montague,” Shepard replied. “Any time. But not really. Just when it’s convenient, and you can pay me.” The woman grunted and Shepard flashed the bounty hunter a grin before tossing her duffle through the airlock into the hanger below before sliding down the ladder in a quick, controlled fall to land on the dock floor, knees bent. She rose slowly and made room for her passengers to descend, and turned to find that her berth wasn’t empty.

A familiar batarian in black armor stood at the airlock, assault rifle crossed over his chest. An asari and a turian flanked him, mirroring his posture. 

“What’s this, Shepard?” Erash said, his low voice rumbling as he took a step into her periphery, glaring at the welcome party. 

“Apparently I continue to be less subtle as a sneezing vorcha,” she grumbled to herself as tilted her head to the side, studying the newcomers. Hopefully they wouldn’t also be her firing squad.

“Anto!” She called out, raising her arms as if she wanted to embrace him, but she kept her hands up, fingers spread wide in a pose that said, _don’t fukcing shoot, I give up_. “So nice to see you, buddy.”

_Don’t mention Aria. Don’t mention Aria._

The batarian grumbled something.

“What was that? I didn’t quite hear you.”

“No games, Shepard,” he said. “Who are your goons?”

“Passengers,” she corrected. “Paid in full. Just a couple of knuckle draggers from Imorkan. No need to be jealous. We’re not _together--_ ” she winked, “--if that’s what you're asking.” 

The batarian blinked his four eyes at her, sneering a thin lip so he bared needle teeth. 

“You can go,” the asari said to Erash and Montague, jerking their assault rifle towards the open hanger exit. The asari looked vaguely familiar, and the itch between her shoulderblades intensified. They were probably a member some Eclipse Consanguinity cell on Illium. They had that look about them.

“Captain?” Montague’s voice held a hint of a question. _Need backup?_

“You know, I was expecting at least a few hours before my welcome committee caught up with me. They must have been doing some team building exercises to get this good.” The asari hissed at her, and Shepard rolled her neck, and sighed for what felt like the hundredth time in the twenty minutes that had passed since clapping eyes on Omega again. “Best do as they said, kids,” Shepard said, and she saw the pair edge around her from the corner of her eye. “Seriously. I’ll be fine.”

“Whatever,” Erash snapped, and strode towards the door. Montague looked back once, and Shepard shrugged. Montague gave her a last, pained look followed her partner out the door to be swallowed by by Gozu district’s bustle. 

Shepard dropped her hands and Anto stalked forward, circling her.

“Aria wants to see you. Now.” 

“No shit,” she growled back, levity gone now that she didn’t have to keep up the good humor for her passengers.

The asari took out a scanner and ran it over Shepard’s torso, glancing at readout. “It’s her,” they snapped. 

The turian grabbed her duffle and tossed it to her with a bored flick of his mandible. Shepard caught it with a grunt and fell into step with her escort. 

The asari sidled up along her left. “Remember me, Shepard? I remember you. Scared, feral little thing you were, mmmm… how old must you have been? Fifteen? My, but humans grow so quickly. Wonder if you’re any better at keeping people out of your head than you were back then.”

The neck of Shepard’s armor felt tight again, and a sick little spike of bile rose in her throat. Of course. Of _course_ Aria would send one of _those_ goons. Memory flung her boldly back into the past, fifteen years, her mind ripped open, crouching with her hands above her head, screaming for the three asari to stop, to get _out_ of her head. They invaded her mind again. Continuously. _Conditioning_ , they’d called it. Maybe if she got angry enough she could keep them out. Protect Aari’s secrets. 

The asari’s name burst into her mind like the bile rising in her throat. Rhi'hesh Shurta. Shepard blinked and she was twenty-nine again. The sour taste spread in her mouth, and she consciously relaxed her fist as it strayed towards her Wraith of it’s own accord, a flare of blue energy sparking across her shoulders and down her arms in warning. 

“Rhi'hesh. I’d love for you to find out,” Shepard hissed back. “Maybe when we meet in in a dark alley, when no one else is around.”

_Shoot them._

Rhi'hesh Shurta was Eclipse, and a sadist, and...

Don’t _shoot them. One of Aria’s pets, a liaison to the Eclipse Consanguinity. Kill them and you’re dead. Or at least bumped up a few priorities on some hit list._

She exhaled, let her shoulders relax, let go of her biotics, let her hand fall back to her side. 

Rhi'hesh chuckled, a dark, oil slick sound that did nothing to quell the sick taste of bitterness that kept rising in her throat. 

“I’d like that, Shepard.” 

They slid back bring up the rear, letting Anto take Shepard’s flank and the Turian take point as they escorted her to the only place such a welcome committee would possibly take her on Omega. Gravity on Omega was a solid earth g, but social gravity was another matter. She flowed downhill like water, caught in Omega’s pull, to pool in the fetid well that was Afterlife. 

Shepard heard the pounding of the music before she saw the line for the club, but they headed for the VIP entrance and soon the music was _all_ she could hear, matching the hammering of her heart that had grown faster since she’d realized who the asari escort was. It wasn’t an accident. Aria must have wanted to send a message. 

Afterlife was exactly the same as the last time she’d been there. The heavy boom and thrumm of club music swallowed the stamp of boots on the sticky, pitted floor.

A dias lit in blue and pink neon rose from the middle of the floor, and Shepard faltered a moment as she reached the steps.

“Don’t keep her waiting.” Anto barked over the music, moving to shove Shepard forward with broad side of his rifle as she stalled at the first stair. 

She spun, snarling, shoving him back a step so he stumbled into Rhi'hesh, who raised their rifle with a shout of warning. The crowed around them shifted, kept undulating and flowing but suddenly they were a bright, hot point of aggression. The crowds in Afterlife knew how to get out of the way.

“Don’t _touch_ me,” Shepard snarled. She raised her chin like her glare was a gun, leveled at the three who had escorted her. Anto and the nameless turian didn’t know who she was, of course. Anto wouldn’t have shoved her if he knew who she was, the coward. Only a handful of people-- Aria’s old guard inner circle knew. Rhi'hesh knew. 

A crackle of static filled the air, and Shepard let a surge blue energy dance sudden and bright over her curling fingers, so Anto backed up another step, forcing Rhi'hesh to do the same, gun still pointed at her chest. “You ever, _ever_ try to handle me like that again and it’ll be the last thing you do. I promise you, Aria won’t protect you from me.”

She let her biotic flare die abruptly, and turned away, showed her welcome committee her back, letting them know they were not a threat to her, reminding them that she came willingly to Afterlife, when she really didn’t have to, and she could put them all down in a moment if she thought it would be worth her while.

The stairs reared up before her, the dias concealed by a low wall. Nym lifted her boot, and placed it down on the first stair.

 _One foot at a time, girly. It’s how you get anywhere._

Thirteen steps. Nym counted them as the sin-laden reverberations of Afterlife pounded through her boots each time they touched down on a stair. The rumble of heavy dance music was seductive to most people, but to Shepard it always just reminded her of being a child. 

And there she was, the queen herself, untouched as the day Shepard had been put at her feet, as a screaming child who didn’t know what had happened to her, or her family. Aria was the same as when Shepard had last been here, four years prior. It was Shepard who had changed, had a few threads of silver in her deep auburn curls now, a touch of laugh lines around her eyes, the etching of grief and anger creating a near-permanent crease between her brows. Her warm brown, sun weathered, freckled and jagged scar, faded by eight years of healing, lined the right side of her face, starting on her lower lip and forking down over her chin like a jagged snake of lighting. 

“Hello Aria,” Shepard growled, crossing her arms over her chest, popping a hip as she laid eyes of Omega’s de facto ruler. The asari who had raised her, kept her alive all those early years, and trained her to be the biotic warrior she was today.

How many years had Shepard spent on this dais, at Aria’s feet? She counted them, staring up at the ceiling. She was six when her parents died. She was twenty when she finally started freelancing off of Omega.

_Five, ten, fifteen. Nearly Fifteen years._

Fully half her life. And it had taken another few years after leaving Omega for her to realize the truth of her upbringing. The biotic training, the genetic enhancement, the intentional eezo exposures, the… abuse. She could call it that, now. Good thing Shepard was such a good liar, or she’d never have passed her Spectre psych eval. Or maybe she was just that high functioning. Not that it mattered. She’d lost it all anyway.

She shouldn’t be here, but with Nihlus dead and the Council fickle, she had nowhere else to go. Besides, running roughshod over Omega for a bit was too satisfying a diversion to pass up when her life had gone-- to borrow an Alliance navy term, FUBAR.

And Nym Shepard’s life was currently, unarguably FUBAR.

The asari leaned back, bared indigo arms spread on the back of the couch in an pose that suggested she required approbation. “Shepard. What, no comm call? If I’d known you were coming for a visit, I would have thrown a party.”

“How’d you know? Did someone rat on me?” “Please, Shepard. Nothing moves on the station without me knowing about it. Besides, I’m the one that taught you the ID scrambler trick.” Aria stood and approached Shepard with steps that made her look like she was stalking prey. “You’ve got a four-set, showing up here.”

“Can’t help it. Been spending too much time with krogan.”

“I hear you’re a glorified cab driver now. You’re calling the _Jane_ the _Apate_? Really?” “I thought it was a fitting name to return to Omega with. Apate was Nemesis' sister, after all.”

_Lies. Lies and retribution._

“What happened to you, Nym? I thought you were the Butcher. The next human Spectre. Not… this.”

Shepard swallowed hard, willing her spine to stop doing that creeping rage thing that it was doing. 

“I got homesick?” Shepard offered with mock hopefulness in her voice.

“Varrenshit. You want something, or the Council wants something. Pity Tevos didn’t survive-- the new asari Councilor is not so pliable. Did she send you sent to spy on me? Does the Council think they can leverage our relationship to some kind of advantage?”

Shepard laughed, low and bitter. “You’re paranoid.” “Of course I’m paranoid. That’s why I’m alive.” 

“The Council has no idea about our relationship. You _know_ Tevos didn’t even know. They didn’t send me here. I came on my own.”

“You can’t blame me for being suspicious, Nym. Things are moving in the galaxy that shouldn’t be. Geth activity is proof of that. Heros are dying, and monsters are stirring in dark space.” Aria’s mouth was tight and disdainful, and she turned, and gestured to the couch. Permission to sit. “Why are you here?”

_My mentor is dead, the new Council has abandoned me, and I have nowhere else to go._

Shepard shrugged. “You know, that’s a _really_ good question.” 

“I’m not playing twenty questions here. What do you want?”

“I don’t want anything Aria. You’re the one that had your goons hustle me here. _You’re_ the one that’s always looking for the angle. I’m just here on a nostalgia tour.”

“Please, Shepard. Don’t think I haven’t noticed your targeted attacks on _my_ external resources. I owned half the HE-3 extraction operations on that moon you know.”

Shepard allowed herself the smallest of satisfied smiles. “What moon would that be?” 

She knew exactly which moon. That’s where she’d been when she got the call that Nihlus was dead.

She _knew_ he should have turned down that damn detour to the _Normandy_ to evaluate Commander Fisher and do a shakedown on Eden Prime. She’d told him his trust in Spectre infallibility would be his undoing-- she didn’t like it. He wouldn’t tell her why he was going to Eden Prime. He told her he wanted her to have body count by the time he got back.

She was still counting now. Counting bodies, counting steps, counting years, and in the meantime, the galaxy was falling apart around her. Or maybe she just noticed it more. Too much time in Council space made her more keenly aware of just how _bad_ things were in the Terminus Systems. The war with the Geth, the attack on the Citadel, expanding merc outfits, slavers running rampant out of the Hegemony. Hell, even the Asari had their own robust trade in human cargo. 

“Terapso’s moon, Shepard.”

“Ah, Terapso. Great moon. You’ll find the a bunch of ex slaves now own that operation, along with a bunch of security mechs and a half dozen heavy turrets. If you’re interested in doing _actual_ business there, instead of exploiting people, maybe they’ll cut you a deal instead of shooting you. _If_ you ask real nice.”

“You and I both know I don’t need to ask nice. I could take it back in a blink, but I like to indulge my little girl."

And there it was. The whole history of Aria and Shepard yawned before them. Aria’s Girl, that’s who she was on Omega, even if she could count on both hands the number of people who knew it, who knew her first name or where she came from or how she was kept right here, by Aria’s side, for years. 

Shepard threw herself down onto the sofa, letting her arms fall to her side. It was amazing to her how easily she slipped back into the antagonistic, playfully aggressive banter. 

“How’s Omega?” She said, lounging back to face Aria like the ten years between them had been erased, and she’d never left this spot by Aria’s side.

Aria lounged back on the couch, somehow both stiff as a pole and relaxed as a cat, and stared down her nose at Shepard. “Exactly the same as before your self-imposed _exile_. Mine. Though we’ve been attracting a lot of washouts from Council space lately, since the Citadel got wrecked. Lawful idiots think they can make it as mercs or freedom fighters out here, but they don’t have what it takes. I suppose I count you as one of those washouts, now.”

Shepard shrugged. “I seem to fit the criteria.” 

Her mind turned back to Nihlus, Fisher, and the attack on the Citadel, and she frowned. “The Savior of the Citadel just kicked it, did you hear?”

“The human Spectre? Commander Fisher? I heard. I also heard he’d convinced Saren Arterius to put a bullet through his own brain, right in the Council Chambers. Fisher was a dangerous man.”

“And now he’s a dead one. Lost that prototype stealth frigate and everything.” 

“It’s too bad. That ship was a dream. Geth attack, apparently.” She crossed her legs and kicked a foot absently. Her intel, the rumors that abounded on the deep net said otherwise, though. 

Cerberus channels she’d been spying on as part of a project with Nihlus recently had patterns of chatter about Collectors, which was odd enough that Shepard had done some homework on her way back to the Terminus Systems. The Alliance was covering things up for Fisher, who often got written off as an eccentric conspiracy nut by the media-- or maybe they were covering because of him. Conspiracies on the the undernet breathed words of “Protheans” and “genocide,” and that an ancient threat of sentient starships were coming to purge the galaxy of organic life. Commander Fisher had been at the center of these conspiracies, but now he was dead, and the Geth were the only verified threat. Collectors, maybe. Shepard didn’t know what she’d seen that day on the Citadel, when the giant, squid-like dreadnaught tried to rip the center of Council power to shreds. Geth, Reaper, it didn’t matter. Fisher had done his job. And then he’d died. 

She and Aria exchanged more news-- Aria had been dancing with the Shadow Broker and the Blue Suns were still assholes, to no one’s surprise. Then, the real news happened. Aria’s narrowed eyes warned Shepard that something was deeply amiss before her words did.

“There were Collectors on Omega.”

Shepard sat upright, dropping her bored act. “Collectors? You know that’s what they say took out Commander Fisher’s ship, right?”

“So I hear,” Aria said dryly. “Though they’re claiming it was geth. Happened right in Omega nebula. _”_

_Right under your nose._

“What happened with the Collectors here?”

Aria launched into the story, and Shepard felt something sick and uneasy rise in her gut. The Suns were trading humans for cash, which was not really a revelation. The Blue Suns were always meddling with slavery. To hear Aria tell it, she’d gone nova on the whole exchange, had blown up a Collector and cause massive collateral damage, which was also typical. 

“You didn’t even try to save the slaves, did you?” Shepard said, watching the old Asari carefully. 

Aria laughed, and it was just like Shepard remembered. Mocking, amused. Cold, like the asteroid belt was cold. You had to dodge that laugh. “You’re heart is to tender for this galaxy, Nym.”

Shepard ignored the dig-- that her heart was tender had been tested and proven objectively not true. 

“And that was it? The Collectors were just… buying slaves?” Shepard had a weird itch between her shoulder blades.

“That’s it. Likely we won’t see them again for another twenty years. I wasn’t even sure they were real until I blew them up.” Aria paused. “I don’t like Collectors on my station.”

“I don’t like Collectors… anywhere. Six months ago it was geth and that bigass dreadnaught. Now this. This is why I stick to slavers.” Two Collector sightings, the first human Specter dead with a massive Alliance cover-up, and chatter from Cerberus. Shepard didn’t like it.

Aria’s expression softened slightly. "What are you doing on Omega, Shepard?”

Shepard looked off into the neon haze behind Aria’s head, absently watching the silhouette of a dancer gyrate hips to the music. Shepard wasn’t sure how to answer the question-- she didn’t want anything. She wanted… peace. Some down time. She’d been filled with such power, optimism about her place in the galaxy since becoming a Spectre candidate, but when Nihlus died… she’d lost her nerve. He’d been the one who’d put the idea in her head, convinced her she could be more than a freelancer, make a real difference by throwing Spectre authority behind her anti-slavery work in the Traverse-- a place where Spectre authority held little, but sometimes just enough, sway. She’d believed him until the Council began to interfere with her operations, trying to claim territory she’d freed for themselves, and put their own brand of slavery into play, subjugating former slave colonies with rules and regulations instead of control chips and shock collars, and Shepard railed against at every turn. Seeing her hard work get traded for political instead of literal slavery was hard to swallow. 

And when Nihlus had died… they’d kept her locked down on the Citadel until they could find her a suitable partner. She waited months, with nothing. No work, just training and bureaucracy. One more anonymous Spectre candidate in a queue of thousands. 

The time between Aria’s question and her answer stretched on for too long, and Shepard thought about home. 

“Is the hangar still there?”

“You want… the hangar? I haven’t cared to touch it. Anika is doing upkeep, and using it sometimes to keep her kids if the way house gets too full. You know the security bypasses to get in there. Now, get out of my sight before I decide to have Anto shoot you, after all.”

Shepard smiled sweetly and extracted herself from the couch. At least she’d have her hanger back. She could bunker down and sleep as much as she needed, do some research on the Collectors and maybe take a few day trips to local landmarks for the purpose of shooting slavers in the head, just to blow off steam. But she wasn’t going to go all Spectre candidate on this place. 

She needed a vacation.

~~~

Her hanger was the same-- her old shuttle at the far end of the expansive space, by the shutters that opened into a massive drop into empty space that looked out into the center of the station. A makeshift living room held a sagging couch, her empty fish tank and a rickety staircase lead up to a loft, shrouded by a wall of earth plants that the hydroponics VI still watered diligently while she’d been away-- four years and going strong. They needed some pruning, though. Her workbench was scattered with half finished projects that collected four years of dust, and weapons and armor cases were stacked against the wall. Some exercise gear and training equipment for biotics took up most of the empty floor space along the other side. Aria had said that Anika still used this place as a hideout for kids. Some small articles of clothing in a basket, and some toys confirmed this, though everything had stagnant, unused feel to it. It was clean though, if a bit stale smelling-- like old oil and recycled air and the faintest hint of ozone. Smelled like home.

Shepard climbed into the loft that served as her bunk and pulled the canvas off of the naked bed, letting it fall in a stiff pile on the floor. Her body took over as it remembered the space, and she found where small, domestic things like sheets and pillows were kept-- everything was the same as it had been her last visit, and her visit before, and when she’d lived here, for time immemorial. This was how she’d grown up, right here in this tiny loft room above a shuttle hangar. She’d run away, she’d come home. She’d run away again. It seemed like being on the cusp of thirty hadn’t change a thing, as much as she’d wished it. 

She made her bed with clean sheets that smelled of disuse, and fell into it with a sigh, struck with the sudden memory of coming up here to cry after biotic training, after the forced melding resistance training, when she’d had nosebleeds and headaches that blinded her and her mind had been raw and naked, humilated by her failures and bare-stripped secrets.

But here, in this room, she was safe. Here she could think about it.

Nym sat up after a moment and took a little holodisk out of a pouch in her armor pocket, set it on the desk by her bed. Her finger hesitated over the play button, and then she pressed down. A tiny image flared to life, a turian, with white clan tattoos and bright, incisive eyes.

“ _Shepard_.” His voice was thin on the recording, and she hated hearing him sound like that, without all the richness of his subvocals. “ _I wish you could see this ship. The Normandy is amazing. Best parts of human and turian engineering, combined. The Alliance types don’t trust me at all, though. I’ve had more than one person leave the room when I walk in. Older enlisted and NCOs, mostly_.” 

Shepard huffed a bitter little laugh as Nihlus went on, his mandibles tight to his face, trying to reign in his excitement. “ _Fisher is a good officer. Charismatic. People are drawn to him. Bit of an Alliance yes-man, thought. What do you call that type? A tunic stuffing?_ ” “A stuffed shirt, you idiot,” she murmured at the holo as he looked pleased with himself at trying out human idioms. She blinked back the sudden sting in her eyes. 

“ _Anyway. I’ll be recommending Fisher to Spectre candidacy pending this mission. The Council is right on the brink of giving the Humans a seat, so it shouldn’t be long for either of you. You may even get some missions together. I know you’re angry with me for leaving you behind. We’re a team, and I want you here too. I don’t like this anti human-turian varrenshit. But I can’t have you here when I’m evaluating another Spectre candidate, and you won’t have the Alliance clearance to board the_ Normandy _. Just keep on working, and have a kill count for me when I get back. It’ll go into your next official evaluation._ ”

His gaze grew serious. 

“ _And Nym_ ,” Nihlus said, his voice thin, his face transparent on the holo. “ _The Council won’t make the next few months easy on you. Not being Alliance. Not having a service record. They did it to me… but I-- I had Saren. And you’ve got me.”_ She mouthed his next words-- she’d listened to the holodisk play them out a hundred time in the six months since he’d died, and they were burned into her memory now “ _Don’t ever shy away from the difficult things you find, or the impossible things you must do. And… be patient. The Council will come around.”_

Failed prophecy, from the mouth of a dead man. His final words to her were obliquely sanguine, at pure odds with his imminent death, which was just days… perhaps _hours_ from when he’d recorded the message, and the events which followed.

If only he’d known how wrong he was going to be, or how dead. Nym gritted her teeth, staring at the ceiling as his voice started up again, looping into the beginning of the message. 

The Council hadn’t come around. By the time she made it back to Council space, they’d made Fisher the first human Spectre, and as soon as she landed on the Citadel she was grounded until a “suitable replacement” for Nihlus could be found. And then, just when it seemed that Nihlus’s urging for patience, for playing the waiting game she loathed so deeply would pay off, when it seemd the Council was starting to relent, that the galaxy at large was not opposed to human Spectres, or humans on the Council, that _thing_ had attacked, the geth dreadnought. The Council _died._ And the new Council was mired in crisis, and had a new human member… someone who really _did not_ like Nym Shepard.

C-Sec had given her the holodisk when she’d been recalled to the Citadel after his death, sealed in a little plastic evidence bag, as if it might have told them something. They certainly didn’t tell _her_ anything. They’d found it in his personal effects from the _Normandy_ , which left the Citadel on a classified mission, a day before Shepard had made it back to Council space.... And with it, the newly minted Spectre...

Commander _fucking_ Fisher. 

First human Spectre. She’d been delusional to think it would be her. Non-Alliance, not from Council space. Only her record as a freedom fighter and abolitionist, her bloody work with Alliance black-ops on Torfan six years prior, as well as Nihlus’s backing had made her a compelling choice… but Fisher was better in every way. The best humanity had to offer. 

It wasn’t about not being first though, not really. It was about being anything at all.

Of course it was Fisher. He was an Alliance banner-boy who had the resources, the power, the privilege, and the fucking jawline for the job. She’d seen the posters of the asshole when she’d gone to Nihlus’ memorial service at the Embassies, holos waving from ad pillars encouraging humans to enlist. Of _course_ it had been him.

Nihlus had been everything to her. Like Shepard, he’d been an outsider to his own race, defiant of social mores and cultural expectations, and unapologetic in his methods. They believed in each other, and what they each stood for-- freedom, justice, retribution. Their power and passion and mirrored each other. They’d rhymed. She suspected she might have loved him, given enough time. Maybe not in a romantic way, but… as a brother. A comrade. A friend.

And… Their four years of work had made more of an impact on the shape of the Travers than ten years of her freelancing alone had ever been. And now?

Now it was just really good blood and bullet soaked dream, and she woke up right back where she started. Omega.

She wasn’t going to cry, damn it-- she wasn’t thirteen anymore, but twenty-nine. Twenty-nine year old ex-Spectre candidates didn’t cry. Not even when their mentor was dead, and their life was FUBAR. 

Except she did cry. And then, she slept.

It was hours later when she woke, but the hangar was outside of time- it didn’t matter if she kept a regular schedule right now, so she just followed her body’s urges. She dutifly masterbated, fantasizing about nothing in particular while pinching and rolling a nipple and torturing her clit until she came, letting her cry rock into the echoing silence of the hangar. Then she got up, sated her hunger with flash-dried rations and took a lukewarm shower down in the wet-bath. 

It was all rote-- she knew her body and tended to it like a plant that needed to be bullied into acceptable shape with pruning and maintenance. Water, sunlight, soil. Sex, food, shower. All basic needs accounted for, she now had time to tend to her curiosity.

The first step was to call an old friend, and get her extranet and undernet connections established, secured, and anonymized.

“Grundan Krul?” she said into her comm.

“Who the fuck is this?” The harsh, quite voice on the other line was familiar, made her smile.

“Grundan! Hey, it’s Shepard.”

“Nym Shepard? You’re back.” He sounded pissed, which was baseline for Grundan Krul, and frankly, encouraging. If he really didn’t want to talk, he’d have hung up. It was just his way. “What the fuck do you want?” He was even asking questions! He must be having a good day.

“Security,” she shot back. “I’m going to need your expertise to get my rig reconfigured. I’ve been gone a long time and I can’t just hack things together with omni gel anymore.” She patted the personal terminal as if he could see it, smiling to herself. Krul was an asshole, but was also a mad genius with electronic surveillance and network security. She needed to get back online, needed to be anonymous, and Krul was the best of the best.

He wasn’t cheap though. Luckily she had something he’d find more valuable than credits… a certain human terrorist cell that had gotten on the wrong side of some of his people by way of genetic experimentation on batarians. It was useful, knowing people’s motivations.

“I’ve got some time oh…. next year. Get in fucking line.”

“That’s not gonna work for me Grundan. Besides, I’ve got some private channel access you’d just die to get your hands on.”

“Oh? Like what?

“Cerberus.”

“Fuck! Shepard, is this a secure channel?” There was a pause and then some cursing in some backwater batarian dialect. “Don’t say that name over an unsecure channel!”

“Say what? Cer--”

“Fuck!” He cut her off, and there was another pause. She let the silence stretched on, smiling. 

“Alright. I’ll be right over. Same location?”

“You know it.”

Five hours later, and Shepard was the proud owner of newly updated extranet secrity. It was fully encrypted, using some high tech nonsense patched into the ancient power transformers in her hanger.

“Power goes out and you're going to have to hard reset the whole encryption system,” Krul warned, scowling and looking anywhere but her eyes as he pulled out a cigarette.

She grinned at the old batarian. “Don’t smoke that in here. You set up a switch for me, right? And if I need you, you know where I live.”

He scowled. “Right well. You’re back, and I’m going to go now. Thanks for the Cerberus intel, though I don’t want to know how the hell you got it.” “No, you really don’t,” she said.

He paused at the door, and his expression softened for just a moment. It was a look that probably crossed his face about once a decade. “I’ll check out your security locks on your doors tomorrow.” 

“I will, Grundan. Thanks.”

~~~

Two days later, she got a message from Grundan Krul. She shoved her half-eaten bowl of noodles aside and stared at the blinking cursor on her omni’s reply interface, frowning.

 _///GK 19:95:19_  
_Shepard. Kids are going missing in Gozu. More than usual. Asair, human, batarian._

She hadn’t expected a message like this so soon. It was inevitable, of course. It didn’t matter where she went, or what name she used, someone would always turn to her and ask for unreasonable favors, ask her to do something, _anything_ to make their lives a little less shitty. 

_Help us Shepard! Someone keeps raiding our colony._

_Help me, Shepard! My operative has gone missing._

_Help me, Shepard! My pyjak is suck up a tree, and the tree is on fire, and the pyjak is actually a klixen and everything is on fire._

_Some kids are in trouble. Help them, Shepard!_

Krul knew. He _knew_ that she was incapable of saying no. And it wasn’t just about kids. It wasn’t just about helping people, or being useful. Two days, and she was already itchy under her collar, couldn’t sit still. 

_///SHPD 19:99:90_  
_Is there a pattern? Do you have a lead?_

She sent off the message, before looking up to peer around the counter she sat at. 

“Hey Lem?” Shepard called to the pale blue asari behind the counter, the proprietor and genius cook who ran _The Blue Noodle_.

Lem looked up from the bright blue noodles they were stretching between their practiced hands, a brow raised in question. “Another bowl, Shep? Goddess, I’ve missed your appetite. Keeps me in good business.” They softened their teasing with a crooked smile Shepard couldn’t help but return.

Shepard shook her head. “No, thanks. I’m stuffed. But hey, hear anything about missing kids lately?” 

Lem frowned, glancing at Shepard’s half empty bowl of soup. “There’s always missing kids, Shep. You know that.”

Shepherds message indicator flashed again, and she glanced down to see another text from Krul.

_///GK 20:03:56_  
_Talk to Anika._

Anika. Shepard huffed. Seeing Anika would be _worse_ than seeing Aria, in some ways. For some reason, it was easier to face her past with bitterness than to face the tender parts. 

“Seems like it might be more than the usual runaways,” she said. “Keep an aural out for me, yeah?”

“Sure Shep.” Lem turned back to pulling noodles, hands dusted in lavender flour.

Shepard passed a credit chit over the payment console, and added a generous tip. Lem was always good for information, and tended to be more forthcoming when the credits flowed, as long as Shepard wasn’t too obvious about it. One had to be classy about such things, as far as Lem was concerned.

“I’m going to take a field trip. Thanks for the soup.”

“Any time. And… Shep? It’s good to have you back.”


	2. War on War

_You have to lose_  
_You have to lose_  
_You have to learn how to die_  
_If you want to want to be alive_

_-"War on War," Wilco_

 

**Garrus**

 

Omega, the shithole. Omega, the end of the line.

Omega: where Garrus Vakarian had gone in order to get out of doing paperwork for the rest of his damned-- and rapidly disappearing life.

Garrus had been expecting it to be cold here, out in deep space, in a system with a weak star at its center, but Omega was a damp, hot rock. The air was heavy with the scent of organic rot and acrid metal, and the tang of raw eezo permeated everything, imbuing the air with a certain electricity that made one think things like “oh shit” and “this is going to kill me” that biotics probably felt when their neural pathways lit on fire. Stepping off the shuttle and into the streets was like stepping into a moldy, slightly conductive sponge that had been left on the bottom of the filthy kitchen sink that was the Terminus Systems. Well, that metaphor got away from him, but it didn’t matter. It was time to take out the trash. And trash was everywhere.

And the first thing he did when he stepped off the shuttle and onto Omega’s mean streets was kill a vorcha.

“Seriously?” He muttered. It hadn’t even been five minutes when he rounded a corner and there was a vorcha mugging an elderly human couple with an enormous knife. With the speed and precision that only an angry turian could manage Garrus took the knife from the vorcha and then immediately gave it back, right through its throat.

The couple stared at him. They were frail and human, and so very vulnerable, clinging together as if it gave them strength. Garrus hadn’t seen many elderly humans before, and blinked owlishly, not quite sure what to make of them. Were they all that adorable and tiny? He gave them back the money that the vorcha had stolen, and shrugged off their thanks.

If he was still a security officer, this would be the part in the script where he’d say, _“Just doing my job. Sir, ma’am.”_ But he wasn’t a security officer anymore, so he didn’t.

“You’re a real life angel,” the woman said to his retreating back. His visor sprung up a definition with the flick of his eye. _Angel: Noun. Earth-human mythology. A spiritual being who intervenes on the lives of mortals to act as a guides and guardians._

“Something like that,” he said. He bookmarked the search results for later.

His heart was pounding from the kill, but he was cold through the adrenaline. This was what he’d come here for: Direct action against injustice. Zero consequences. Zero need for justifications. That was what he’d dreamed of all those years-- what he’d finally gotten a small taste of when working with Commander Fisher-- though Fisher had still been bound by two things that held him back: the Alliance and his damned ego. It still burned that Fisher had stopped Garrus from killing Dr. Saleon-- instead the man had gone down fighting, as if that had excused his death somehow. The results were the same, but Fisher got to make himself feel good about it, instead doing what was right-- _right now._ Garrus would rather have put a cold bullet in the organ harvester’s brain as soon as he laid eyes on him, but Fisher had thought to teach him some high minded lesson about morals that Garrus had swallowed like a bitter pill.

Specter status would have at least given him something… He’d tried to wait out his Specter candidacy, but the new Council was eating its own tail, round and round, trying to sort out how to make space for a human member when they could hardly get things done with just three races represented. Udina, the bastard, was blocking every turian candidate to the Specters, even though two operatives, two _turian_ operatives had died within a few months of each other.

So, fuck the Council. Fuck Specters. And, respectfully, fuck Commander Fisher, may he rest in peace. Garrus was a capable man, too smart for his own good, people (usually his superiors) often told him, and he was going to do things his way now. No more high minded idealism. Just do-it-yourself justice.

So that made him an angel, now? He kept wandering the streets, duffle bag on one shoulder, rifle on his back. He’d be a guardian and a guide for Omega, bringing Spirits-granted messages to thugs and criminals in the form of blood, and bullets, and fear.

~~~

Afterlife was the logical first step in learning the why’s and what the fucks of Omega. The club sent all of Garrus’s senses on fire, creeping down his neck and making his spine vibrate with paranoia. The club reminded him of Chora’s Den, except Chora’s den and Fist were small time compared to Afterlife and Aria T’Loak. Aria was a name Garrus learned quickly, in the same breath as Afterlife, and kept hearing over and over again. Aria this, Aria that. Half of Omega was in love with her, worshiped her. The other half wanted her dead… And Garrus was finding that those two groups were not mutually exclusive.

Garrus didn’t care, though. He wasn’t going to play games designed by a crime boss, but he would use her turf as hunting grounds. Afterlife was clearly the place to scope out high-end lowlifes and watch for patterns of power to emerge, and emerge they did. There were factions: three main merc gangs that he could discern: Blue Suns, Blood Pack, and Eclipse, all conveniently labeled and color-coded. Aria’s crew of turian and batarian enforcers were outside of the gang triad, and they mostly wore unmatched but universally dark armor. There were the dancers and the servers, a mix of human women and asari, and the bartenders and bouncers who seemed like the usual rough crowd for a place like this.

Then there were patrons wearing civs, here to party, to be seen, and to make connections. Garrus considered them. Anyone in armor was an automatic target, because if you were wearing armor you were expecting to get shot. But what about criminals who didn’t need armor to perpetuate their craft-- dealers and pimps, murderers, sadists who exploited and made others to suffer for their own pleasure? At the moment, everyone looked like an enemy.

Garrus began to wander around, dodging the come-ons from dancers and steering clear of the group of vorcha in the hall.

That’s when he heard the yelling. It was clearly krogan and very drunk-- “I’m going to drink out of your stupid turian skull!”

Garrus barreled into the scene and saw a turian on the ground, scrambling away until he was backed into a wall. Floored, scrambling turians were not a pleasant sight-- to many spurs and limbs too long to really move effectively on all fours. Garrus snarled. The krogan was wearing red armor with a white skull painted on-- Blood Pack.

A voice asked him: _“What would Fisher do?”_ The commandeer would have had some brave and inspiring remark, something saccharine and honorable, to diffuse the situation. The man though he could resolve whole systems of oppression and racial prejudice with an inspiring catchphrase. Paragon of his kind, and all that.

Garrus decided he wasn’t cut out for public speaking, and used his body instead.

He so rarely got a chance to go hand-to-hand on the Normandy, but he’d been top rated when he’d served in the Hierarchy, and his body remembered. He charged the krogan and slammed into his shoulder, spinning the brute away and placing himself between the downed turian and their foe. Suddenly the other turian was up and with springing agility, jumped a vorcha with a huge knife that had been trying to flank them. The Krogan was staggering from Garrus’s blow, but then recovered-- and predictably, it charged.

Garrus was not intimidated by charging krogan. He’d faced down so many of them in the past six months, and they always did the exact same thing. He slinked aside and the juggernaut shot past and Garrus’s pistol was out of it’s holster as he sailed by, the gun point blank, right at kidney level. One resounding shot and the Krogan was down, but before Garrus could move to finish him off, the other turian had unloaded his clip into the merc’s brain. Popopop when the side arm, and Garrus lept back, facing off the enraged crowd of Blood Pack mercs who had been attracted to the sounds of a fight, crowding into the hallway, drawing their weapons, and--

“Aria says quit it, assholes!” A batarian in black armor was striding towards them, shoving his way through the crowd on the stairs leading up to the main floor of the club. He was holding a grenade-- pin out. Garrus’ trained eye thought it was some sort of toxin or smoke bomb and not an explosive. Besides, this Aria wouldn’t risk blowing up her club to disrupt a bar fight, would she?

Would she? Stranger things had happened.

“Aria can suck my quad,” another Krogan bellowed, but he put his gun away. Apparently Aria had some sway.

“Aria will make you suck your own quad if you don’t leave. Now.” The batarian seemed… bored. Just another night on the job, then.

Garrus holstered his gun, and the other turian followed suit. He could hear the wheeze of the other man’s strained sub vocals as he tried to catch his breath, and Garrus growled. Unaware of the warning signs, the batarian relaxed. He shouldn’t have. Garrus took a step forward, smiling as if to say something, and suckerpuhcned the second krogan in the quad, just like he’d requested. The batarian roared and seconds later the smoke bomb went off. His gamble was correct, which meant he was currently choking on thick, damp smoke instead of laying in little pieces on the floor. Garrus spun and grabbed the turian, shoving him roughly to get the man moving.

“Come on!” Garrus groped along the wall for some kind of exit, and found a passage down, not sure if it was going to lead to an escape or a dead end, but exhilarated by the prospect. They burst into some lower markets, smoke pouring after them, fractured and pierced by the harsh lights from outside the club, both gasping, but Garrus was laughing.

He stopped laughing when the other Turian wasn’t keeping pace though.

“Come on, keep moving.” This turian seemed to lack a sense of self preservation. The man’s hands rested on his knees as he bent double, trying to catch his breath, sub vocals wheezing in protest. He glared at Garrus as if he _hadn’t_ just saved his life, eyes dark, deep set, and feverish.

“You’re crazy!”

“I’m crazy, but your skull is currently still attached to the rest of you, and distinctly not a krogan drinking goblet because of it.”

“Sh-shit. Okay. Thanks.” He paused, leaning on a metal strut that twisted out of the side of a derelict building. “Groam’s had a hit on me since I got to Omega-- this fucking town, let me tell you. It’s going to be the death of me. Stupid to go to Afterlife tonight but I heard he was off station. Just my fucking luck-- but… that killshot felt damn good.”

“What was up with the Blood Pack? How’d you piss them off?”

The other turian smiled thinly, mandibles twitching and then coming in tight. “I’ve been skimming their accounts.”

“Oh really?” That was interesting news. Maybe this guy was here for similar reasons. Or maybe he was a petty con man. Maybe it didn’t matter what the reasons were-- he knew about Blood Pack credit accounts and seemed to enjoy killing mercs. “What’s your name?”

The dark eyed turian looked at Garrus for a moment, and then snapped to attention. “Lantar Sidonis.”

“Garrus Vakarian.” Garrus grinned.

Sidonis’ eyes narrowed. “Vakarian… hey, wait. You’re Garrus Vakarian?”

Garrus froze. Using his first name, coupled with his clan name had been automatic and frankly, ill advised. The name Vakarian and it’s clan markings were common enough, though not usually in this part of space. Vakarians tended to stick close to Palavan or the Citadel. Good Vakarians, at least. Turians generally didn’t give just their first names-- he should have stuck with Vakarian. Or made something up. Damn it. No point lying about it now. Garrus was a horrible liar. Shit. "Yeah, I guess I am.”

“Part of Commander Fisher’s team? The one who took down Saren? Fought the geth? Holy shit. Its… an honor, sir.”

Inwardly, Garrus groaned. Could he _not?_ This whole “it's an honor” thing had been happening a lot on the Citadel after the attack-- younger, lower ranking turains got all misty eyed when they found out who he was, what he’d done. Garrus was of two minds about it. He was proud of the hard work he’d done on the Normandy, proud to have been there to take down Saren in the end. Garrus had a bit of a braggart in him from time to time-- but taking out Saren and the geth, serving under Fisher? That had been a deeply transformative experience. He’d learned more from those sweet three months with Fisher aboard the Normandy than he had in a lifetime of service to his father, the Hierarchy, and C-Sec. Frankly, it was sort of embarrassing, and he wished people would stop commenting on it.

“It's really not.”

Sidonis wasn't done yet, though, and barreled on, oblivious to Garrus's... disquiet. “I was sorry to hear about the Commander’s death…. taken out by geth after all that? Seems kind of far fetched, but I guess luck only gets you so…” Sidonis paused, and sort of shrank a bit as he realized what he was saying. Or maybe it was the look on Garrus’s face, cold and tight. “Sorry, Vakarian.”

“Fisher was a friend, but we all knew the risks.”

“Well, whatever you’re doing here… good luck.” He sounded impressed, like it was something important. Maybe some top secret Council business. “Hey Vakarian,” Sidonis was eager, but his sub-vocals spoke volumes. He was intimidated. “If you ever need someone to watch your back, or… if you need anything, let me know.” He pinged Garrus’s omnitool, and Garrus entered the security code to exchange comm addresses. Might as well. Sidonis was the first person Garrus had met on this damn station who seemed to be aware of fucked up it was that was also capable of defending himself… sort of.

“I’ll keep in in mind.” He turned to go. “And Sidionis? Try not to get fringed by any more krogan.”


	3. Deathwish

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'll try my best not to split up POVs too many times within individual chapters.

**Shepard**

The man looked like he wanted to die. He was turian, with blue, geometric clan markings across his narrow, plated face. Lean build, for a turian. If he were human he might be almost gangly, but he was a turian and turians were beyond that descriptor. A stork, with teeth and huge shoulders instead of wings. He wore a high quality set of armor, and a targeting VR visor over his left eye, and by the way he used both, he knew his way around a gun and an omnitool. That was not in question-- what was in question was his will to live. The way he was interposing himself between perfectly reasonable cover and the rifle fire from about half dozen angry Vorcha was either stupidity or a death wish. Shepard bet on the latter, and decided to interfere.

Shepard sighed. She’d been hopping that this would be a simple food run after who knew how many hours in front of her console, but the thought of this guy throwing his life away against some utterly pointless vorcha moved her to action without much deliberation. Running to plunge herself into the firefight, Shepard yelled for him to get in cover and fired a shot above his head, nailing a Vorcha in the throat. The vorcha lit on fire, howling. Best ammo mod ever, that incendiary stuff. He cast her a shocked look as her pistol cracked its shot at a higher frequency than the hiss and thunk of his own and the vorcha’s automatic weaponry, but had enough brains to throw himself to the ground and roll, finally, reasonably coming up behind a crate. She dove for the cover as well and they ended up shoulder to shoulder, breathing hard.

“There are better ways to die on Omega than getting shot up by vorcha,” she said, panting. She peered up at him, face flushed. His head was turned but she could see him giving her the side eye around the glow of his visor, breathing hard.

“You want in on this fight or not?” He sounded weary, as if he’d been fighting for years and they’d already lost, yet kept going. Good voice though. The double larynx always made it sound like turians were purring, and he had this lazy...drawl.

“Oh, I’m in.” She ducked from cover and hit another vorcha, unloading three shots into the general area of it’s brain. The turian let off a spray of rifle fire and the vorcha went down.

“Three to go! Hey, want to see something cool?”

“Uh?”

Shepard grinned and swapped her pistol for her shotgun. It was a beautiful gun, all burnished ultralight alloys and aggressive curves. Based on a krogan model, it had been scaled to fit a human frame. Her human frame. It was the only shotgun of its kind in existence.

“Cover me.”

“Wha--” In a blue crack of biotics, space wrenched sickeningly and Shepard launched herself across the platform, towards her target. It seemed her instructions were taken to heart, because as she landed in a flare of dark energy, and before she could pull the trigger the vorcha who had gone flying from her charge stayed down with a bullet in its brain -- from the high velocity sound coming from behind her, the turian switched to the sniper rifle he’d been packing. He stole her killshot! Rude!

From behind she heard that voice yell something-- sounded like "Scratch one!"

 _Never stop moving,_ the voice of self preservation reminded her. The muzzle of her shotgun was a foot away from the second vorcha’s chest and she pulled the trigger. He flew backwards with the force of it and died. Last one was trying to lay into her with a spray of bullets, so she hit it with a biotic pull that made the alien rise and drift helplessly away, and then gravity took over as it sputtered and died with a sniper’s bullet in his brain.

“Ugh,” She shook a some pulpy vorcha viscera from her boot, and turned to see the turian jogging up to her location. He was staring at her, mandibles slightly… ajar was the only word she could think of.

“That was…. um…”

“Impressive?” she offered.

“Stupid,” he countered.

“Ah. Well. Can’t win ‘em all,” she said lightly, shaking out the lingering tingles of biotic discharge and popping her neck with a twitch. Charging always made her feel jittery-- too wound up and a little bit manic. It made her do stupid things like talk too much or… well, it kind of turned her on. “I got the looks and bravery, so intelligence is asking a bit much. Say, you know what else is stupid? Fighting a pack of vorcha without using the cover that was right behind you.” The turian was glowering at her, but perhaps looked faintly embarrassed, rubbing the back of his neck like that. It was an oddly human gesture. “Why the firefight, anyway?”

“Oh… right.” Yes, definitely embarrassed now. His neck was turning a bit blue. Nihlus’ neck used to turn gray when she teased him. Not only could Shepard say she knew how to make a turian blush, but she could make a turian _Specter_ blush. This guy here? Fish in a barrel. “There’s some kids,” he mumbled.

Suddenly her levity, and the biotic high was gone. “Show me.”

The kids were huddled in the entrance to a ventilation shaft, pressed together so they wouldn’t slide down into the depths and get chopped by the fans. There were some humans and a batarian, all holding on to each other, and suddenly Shepard was reminded of her own childhood, here in this very district.

“Hey, kids” she said, getting down next to the turian. A few coaxing questions revealed that the kids were orphans, brought in on a transport and left at the docks by half-assed do-gooder who hadn’t bothered to finish the job of seeing them to safety. The vorcha were trying to corral them when the turian had heard their screaming. “My friend and I are gonna take you to a safe place, okay? I used to go there when I needed to be safe, so you can trust it. Okay?”

The kids were easy, but it took a moment to convince the turian. “It’s a good way-house, safe for a while at least. I’ll get you to a shuttle, but that’s as far as I go.” A few taps on her omnitool let Anika know they were coming. She didn’t really need to visit the way-houses right now-- didn’t feel like meeting anyone who’d who’d ask her all about what she’d made of herself or why she never visited, and didn’t need them to express concern. The thought of Anika’s big, sad eyes on her was enough to make a knot form in her throat.

“You’re not coming? I can’t say I know Omega very well…”

“Clearly.” He looked affronted. “I mean, no one who knows Omega wanders around alone, rescuing orphans from roving bands of vorcha slavers. It’s just not done.”

“You just did,” he pointed out.

“Yeah, but I’m stupid, remember?” He didn’t seem to have a rejoiner for that, and they were saved further debate as the cab arrived. The kids were hiding again, peering out at the two adults as they talked, and she began to herd them into the little car.

“Look, you seem like a good person, someone who’s not used to… this,” she waved her arms vaguely at a pile of garbage, and the homeless kids, and the scorched air. “So I’ll give you some free advice. Get someone to watch your back. Get several someones. And don’t rock the boat.”

“What boat? Idiom translation error.” His response to a translator error was automatic and clearly a drilled one, and not Turian Hierarchy trained either. Turian military tended not to value interspecies communication, after all. This guy was security, she’d bet her shotgun on it. Probably Citadel. Aria had mentioned that washouts were coming to play vigilante on Omega.

“It means you make a scene and you die. Here’s a comparable Omega idiom for you: ‘Don’t fuck with Aria.’ Good? I have to go.” She gave him a significant look, and spun on her heel, hair spraying behind her in a nimbus of red, undone and frizzed by her bioitcs. The kids would be fine.

“Wait! what’s your…”

She was walking away, hand waving above her head in dismissal and goodbye as she went. The turian would have to get in the shuttle if he wanted to keep helping the kids-- no way he’d follow.

“...name?” She was already gone.

 

**Garrus**

The red-haired woman had said some very reasonable things. She’d been sanctimonious, flippant, arrogant even, but she wasn’t wrong. If he was going to suicidal charge around Omega trying his damndest to kill or be killed, he should probably have backup. Maybe even a team. Fisher had done it-- once he’d proven that he could get things done. Why couldn’t Garrus do the same?

It’s why he’d come here, after all. There was no need to pull his punches, or be cautious now. Omega was ripe for the reaping, and Garrus was tired of waiting and thinking, tired of trying to do the right thing but getting caught up in the details. The kids were safe at the “way-house,” run by a weary looking human woman named Anika. This seemed to be routine for her-- taking in children and ushering them inside with no questions asked.

He stopped her as she was about to palm the door closed. “A human woman with red hair was the one who sent me to you. She was a biotic. Kind of tall, for a human I guess? Do you know her?”

The woman named Anika stared at him for a moment, and he was struck by her-- large, sad eyes framed by a multitude of fine wrinkles, and a hard-set mouth.

“I have no idea,” she said shortly, completely deadpan. She was lying, Garrus could tell, and there was a determination to her that made him back down slightly and rethink his tactics. But before he could try another angle, a childish shriek and then a crash of something falling came from inside the way-house caused her to jerk her attention away from him and she excused herself with a grunt of thanks for bringing the children to her. The door slid shut, and the security lock turned red.

Damn it, he wanted to find that woman again, get her on his team! His non-existent team. They had worked well together, a combination of her biotics and direct approach with his sharpshooting making quick work of the vorcha in a way that either of them would have struggled with alone. She was crazy, of course-- those powerful biotics mixed with a shotgun created high risk fighting style he’d never seen before, except maybe in the occasional asari commando. Anika was clearly protecting her though, and he didn’t want to intrude. Woman like that was going to be fairly easy to pick out in a crowd with that dark red hair and smartass mouth-- he’d just have to keep an eye out for her.

In the meantime, at least he had someone else that might be interested in being backup. He pulled up Sidonis’ comm address.

“Sidonis? Hey, it’s Vakarian. I have an idea.” He glanced around to get his location and saw a deck number. “Meet me in Gozu 427, and I’ll run it by you.”

Sidionis was a bit perplexed, but Garrus, lit up with passion and inspiration, steamrolled over the more apprehensive man’s uncertainty.

“Look at this place! Omega is crawling with criminals doing whatever they want, because they think they’re untouchable. We can do something about it, Sidionis. Make these assholes think twice about murdering for a few creds.”

“Vakarian,” Sidonis’ sub vocals were soaked in skepticism. “We can shake down the small time stuff, help the helpless, all that. But two guys against the big crime here? Against the Blood Pack? The Blue Suns? We’d get slaughtered. And people-- innocent, people could get hurt.”

“Then it won’t just be two guys. We’ll recruit, just like the gangs do. Fight fire with fire. Think about it Sidonis.” He was almost begging, the hard edge of his lower vocals a whine. “I know there are people on this backwards rock who care. You’re one of them. I met a human biotic just today who kicked ass and didn’t ask for anything in return. Just saw me in a spot of trouble and jumped in to help. There have to be more of us who see what’s sick with this place and want to iron it out. One way or another. But it starts with us Sidonis. People just need some inspiration.”

“Spirits,” Sidonis was squeezing under his mandibles at the soft spot there, as if trying to release an oncoming headache or trying to talk himself out of something stupid, and Garrus knew he’d won. “If you’re going scare the ever living shit out of them, you’re going to need a good name.”

“I’ve already thought of that.” If Garrus could have seen his own grin he would have called himself crazy and started to back away slowly, looking for an escape route. Sidonis shook his head, resigned.

“Where do we even begin?”

Red sand was the obvious place to start, and there was plenty of that to go around. Red sand was what had inspired him to come to Omega in the first place, after all. But for all their talk of hitting gangs where it hurt, Garrus and Sidonis couldn’t get any traction. They spent their first three days as vigilantes shaking down small time dealers and spooking addicts.

“Tell me who your supplier is.” Garrus had the human face down against the desk, broken shards of glass mixing with blood from superficial cuts. Bags of red sand were stacked like tiny sandbags on a shelf nearby, meticulous. Sidonis ruined it by swiping the little bags into sack. The human caught his stash being confiscated out of the corner of his eye, and groaned.

“Go to hell.”

“Already there, asshole.” Garrus shook the man, rattling the table. He added a bit more pressure.

“Ahg, Thralog Mirki'it! Tharlog, you want Thralog.” The dealer’s face was being ground into the glass, Garrus’s hand convulsing around his skull.

“You’re my messenger, now. You tell them Archangel is coming.”

“Archangel?” The man groaned into his own blood.

“New player in town. Tell them. Tell them Archangel's coming.” The human realized it was the only way he was getting out of this alive.

“Jesus Christ, man! You’re fucking crazy-- Ow! Owww! I’ll tell them, I’ll tell…”

He and Sidonis had a substantial collection of red sand after all that footwork, and after the last shakedown of the day, Garrus found a bin, dumped the bags, and lit it on fire, watching it burn. Sidonis stood near by, watching Garrus as intensely as Garrus watched the flame.

Now all they had to do was find Thralog Mirki'it. Shouldn’t be too difficult.


	4. Icebreakers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aw, new friends.

_While we’re talking, let me offer you some free advice_  
_Talk less, Smile more_  
_Don't let them know what you're against or what you're for_

_-"Aaron Burr, Sir," Hamilton_

**Garrus**

Time on Omega never seemed to change: it always felt like it was vaguely late at night, or very early in the morning. It was far from the system’s tiny sun or a regular orbit, it didn’t really have a “day,” or a “night” to create a sense of rhythm or routine, and no one had bothered to design or implement environmental controls of temperature and lighting to make time seem like it moved forward in axis-rotating planet model. It was a place that could swallow your entire life. Garrus spent most of his adult life on ships and stations, so the lack of an organic, cosmic defined rhythm didn’t take much to adjust to, but Omega ran by its own clock, and that clock ran on money and power and violence. Syncing himself to that clock lead him to Afterlife. Again. Other hotspots were seedy, small time things and he stood out there too much for his liking with his top-end gear. Afterlife was where the truly dangerous, the influential ended up, and so that’s where Garrus went when he wasn’t actively looking for Thralog Mirki'it or sleeping in the shitty hotel room he’d rented.

As it turned out, shaking down red sand dealers in order to find their manufactures had seemed like a good idea when they’d started investigating, but getting to the bottom of the syndicate was a lot more complicated than Garrus had thought-- mostly because there _was_ no syndicate. It was all unconnected, opportunistic and full of dead ends. It was like trying to catch smoke. Garrus was a detective, was used to hard work and faulty leads, but Omega was another thing altogether. This wasn’t the Citadel, where there were records and procedure, surveillance and established contacts and moles that he could go to to shake out information. On Omega, it seemed that a red sand manufacturer’s motto was “security by obscurity” and while it was easy enough to search and destroy small time dealers (you just went down to Gozu and followed the sand addicts) the production was impossible to pin down. As for Thralog Mirki'it, and it was only a matter of time before Garrus found him.

As Garrus saw it, he had a few ways of tracking down Mirki’it, and the easiest way was to ask around for him as casually as possible. The other was infiltration, but that was really not Garrus’s forte. He doubted he would be able to fool anyone into thinking he was a red sand user. He’d already (foolishly, he now realized) tipped off the two-bit sand dealer with the name Archangel, so no doubt Mirk’it knew someone was after him. Or some _thing._ Garrus hadn’t made it clear if Archangel was a person… or an entity. Garrus wasn’t quite sure yet, either. He just knew the name had popped into his head while talking to Sidonis, and it had just sort of _happened_ as he’d been grinding the dealer’s face into shreds from the broken glass. Somewhere in the past year Garrus had developed a flair for drama. Some might say he’d been spending too much time with humans. Garrus would say he’d just seen too much.

A server snaked up to him where he sat at in his shadowed corner booth-- a sniper’s choice of seating, good for observing without being observed. He realized he’d been brooding, staring moodily at nothing as he thought, not drinking anything, and he should probably remedy that to at least look somewhat normal. “What can I get you?”

He ordered a turian brandy, dark and rich, and waited for her to come back, loading a nearly triple onto his credit chit before passing along payment.

“Looking for some fun?” She asked when she saw the amount, leaning in so he got a good view of how little her latex outfit actually covered.

“Looking for someone, actually.”

“You and everyone else on this rock.” She scoffed. “I just serve drinks and do some dancing. Go talk to Aria if you want information. Thanks for the extra tip.” Damn it, Aria again? How did that woman command loyalty from every damn person who worked at this bar? They loved her, they hated her, they wanted her dead. Garrus huffed and was about to say something-- tell her off maybe, or ask if there was anyone around here besides Aria who would talk to him, when a voice sounded behind them.

“Hey, big guy.” It was low and female, with a hint of stone, a touch of fire. His mandibles twitched. Had to be a human voice. Single lyrax, no modulations, and what Asari would call him ‘big guy”? The accent was impossible to place. Galactic standard with no location or origin picking up on the translator. And... _Big guy?_ That was possibly the worst come-on ever, but the woman sounded confident… His eyes widened, brow-plates raised.

“You!” He managed. It was the woman with the red hair, the biotic soldier who’d helped him with the vorcha, and all he could manage was _You!_ Brilliant. Simply stunning.

“Me,” she said by way of confirmation. She threw herself into the booth, across from him (did she always throw herself everywhere?) and turned to the asari server. “Glass of Elasa, neat, with a little--uh,” she she twirled her finger (five small fingers), thinking, “swizzle stick thing and a cherry,” she said to the server before turning her gaze back to Garrus.

“How’re the kids?” Huh? Kids? Oh, right, the orphans she’d helped him save and then foisted upon him as she disappeared into an alley, waving.

“Fine. Safe.”

She bared her teeth in a big human smile, showing off a row of flat, wide teeth with no spaces between them. “Good. Anika said you were asking about me. I figured we’d cross paths again.” Garrus nodded slowly, watching her.

“I was counting on it.”

There was an awkward pause as her drink arrived, a small glass of something green and herbal smelling, with a small red fruit-- he supposed it was a cherry, speared on a stick. She plucked the stick from the drink and popped the red fruit into her mouth, sucking. Human mouths were about the strangest thing he’d seen on a creature. So… agile. He pulled his eyes away from her lips, catching her eyes instead and pinning his gaze there. She was smiling faintly-- she always seemed to be faintly smiling and it unnerved him. Maybe that’s why she did it-- she seemed the sort to enjoy watching people lose their balance.

“Are you going to tell me your name?” He asked after a moment.

“Maybe,” she said, with another secretive smile on those lips. “We’ll see how the night goes.” She was wearing light armor, a high-necked compression suit with ceramic plating and concealed enviro seals. He realized after a moment that she was wearing Commando armor. Asari commando armor. His brain scrambled to figure out the implications. Humans and asari were vaguely the same shape, but humans didn’t make a habit of wearing commando armor-- that had to be earned through rigorous training with an asari military force and asari tended to get pissy about sharing their technology and designs. Perhaps the armor was stolen, or….perhaps it was a trophy? The thought made him uncomfortable. Part of C-Sec training at the Academy had been to learn how to read people, and taking trophies from dead enemies was definitely the sign of a sociopath. He made a quick study of her, trying to see if his adrenaline soaked impressions from the other day matched up with the woman who sat before him now: she had wild waves of reddish hair, not the reddest he’d seen, but it caught the pink neon light which lent it a slight nimbus. Human hair was so strange-- what was the point of it, even? It didn’t do much to keep them warm, as far as he could tell, and every human’s hair was so different. _Okay, Garrus, don’t get distracted by human weirdness, or you’ll be starting all night._ Her skin was brown, a nice color that would have been attractive, if a bit common on a turian woman. Her eyes were in shadow.

“I get the sense you’ve been around a bit. Are you a cop or something?”

Turns out she was also perceptive.

“Not anymore,” he growled. There was that word, ‘cop.’ It was a human term for law enforcement. He’d added it to his translator vocabulary when Commander Fisher had kept using it to refer to what he did at C-Sec. “Is it that obvious?” It seemed he was not the only one adept at reading people.

“Sorry to say, it is. You had a good manner with the kids, and can clearly cooperate with other species-- not usually high on a turian military training regimens. Anyway, law enforcement tends to stick out like a sore thumb around here.”

“Clearly,” he grumbled.

“So, what is it? Palavan? ERCS-- naw, you’re not a private sector guy. Ohh,” she sized him up, taking in the armor and the guns. “C-Sec?” He growled in affirmative to the last. “Been seeing a few of you types around lately. How’d a nice cop like you end up in a shithole like this?”

“I was a detective. Then I served on a starship for a while, before making my way back to C-Sec. But after… well, let’s put it this way: I retired.”

He stared into his glass, the bitter taste of booze and failure on his tongue.

Her head tilted, nostrils flaring. Garrus had mapped that small gesture to the equivalent of a turian mandible-flick of interest. He had her attention. Good. “Omega’s not a bad place to retire too after a full and violent life. Plenty of things to shoot at, if you’re into that sort of thing. And you seem to be…” she waved her hand vaguely, “Into that.” He snorted. “I mean, it’s a horrible place, but what you did for those kids was great. What I’m saying is Omega has it all out in the open.”

“I know… just point and shoot. You’re bound to hit someone who deserves it.”

The woman shook her head. “There’s good here too, though. Go in blind and you’ll kill someone who’s just trying to get to the store to pick up some egg concentrate. Even if after they make breakfast they probably go to work manufacturing control chips for slaves or something, but right now they aren’t hurting anyone. They just want some damn eggs. Can you justify that?”

“Breakfast is the perfect time to die.”

The woman chuckled, raising her glass. “Most important meal of the day.”

Garrus was sure this woman wasn’t a criminal-- or at least she was one of those sorts of criminal that didn’t go around robbing and murdering people. She was too smart, and too honest for that. The commando hardsuit was concerning, but his instincts said it wasn’t a trophy. If it was stolen? Well, beggers can’t be choosers, but Garrus would chose a thief over a psychopath any day. There was potential here-- she seemed to know Omega. Maybe she’d have a lead for him. Time to turn up the charm. “So, you know I’m an ex-cop, Citadel washout. What do you do around here? Cleaner? Hitman? Bodyguard? Or are you the sort of Omega citizen that doesn't deserve to get shot before breakfast?”

“I’m the sort who rushes in to save suicidal ex-cops from packs of vorcha. The sort who knows where to send orphans.” She was smiling at him in a way that made his brain whirl-- it was a smile that promised trouble.

His tone was casual, an easy drawl that was contrary to the interest he was actually feeling. “You’re a talented soldier, though. You could be pretty much anywhere else. Someone with your talents usually ends up with a merc operation. Eclipse or something. The asari must love you for those biotics.”

She sniffed. “You have no idea.” She sounded bitter, and he’d touched a nerve. No, he probably didn’t have an idea. Something he’d learned from Fisher is that they all had stories, things that kept them separate and apart. Things that made each and every one of them alone. So much for turning up the charm.

She recovered from the offence his words had caused, taking a gulp of her drink and setting it down with wet smack on the bar, condensation pooling. “Look, big guy. Maybe it’s none of my business, but you seem to have a sort of death wish, and you’re talented enough that I’d hate to see your dreams come true. Omega could use more people like you-- but they tend to get killed off pretty fast.”

“Help me, then.”

He could see it in her eyes: okay buddy, you’re not _that_ interesting. Rejection was on the tip her tongue, mouth tightening-- but in the HUD of his visor her vitals suddenly jumped, heart rate increasing and her body temperature wavered. “I’ll bite,” she said at last. “What do you need?”

He felt a rush of triumph, and the words careened out of him. “I’ve been shaking down small time red sand dealers, and I’ve got a name. I think he’s big, maybe manufacturing. I want to find him, go after him.You said yourself I need someone to watch my back.” He had Sidonis, but Sidonis was a yes man, someone he could point at a problem had have it shot at. This woman was partner potential. He leaned forward, eyes intent and lit with a passion he hadn’t felt since delivering a similar speech that had convinced Sidonis not that long ago-- even that hadn’t really compared. Not since he’d failed to convince Executor Pallin to extend his investigation into Saren. Not since he’d met Fisher and hunted Saren. “I want that person to be you.”

She was laughing at him, shaking her head in amazement. Garrus huffed. Had he offended her? Humans were so weird. A turian would have practically leapt up and saluted the passion in his voice, but she was _laughing_. She’s the one who’d started this-- butting into his fight, coming over to talk to him now. He was just trying to make something good come of it.

“All right,” she said at last, eyes glittering. Her eyes were a steely color, sort of blue, sort of gray. “Yeah, that’ll be fun. We can’t talk about it here, though” Most people grew furtive when they were worried about being overheard, but this woman did the opposite. She totally relaxed, taking another sip of her drink -- she would be the worst kind of suspect to get a beat on-- impossible to read, and very, very charming.

“Good.” He couldn’t keep the smugness out of his tone if he’d wanted to. “Let’s go.”

“Now?”

“We’re both suited up and armed.” He pointed a talon to the shotgun she wore at the small of her back. “I’m sick of sitting around. Let's _go._ ”

She was actually laughing then. “You’re serious.”

“Dead serious. What’s your name?”

“Call me Shepard,” she said, extending a hand over the table. He stared at it for a moment before remembering the human custom of friends grasping each other’s hands in a kind of socially bonding “shake.” It was a significant gesture when new bonds were were being formed, and Garrus recalled Fisher explaining that the strength of the shake and eye contact were equally important. Too much could be read as aggressive or creepy, and too little would indicate weakness or submission.

He took her hand and met her eye squarely, and they matched their grips. She was grinning.

“Archangel.” He leaned into the silence as her grin faltered, and then increased by degrees. Stupid mouth making up a stupid name. He didn’t want anyone to run extranet searches on Garrus Vakarian or find his connection to Commander Fisher or Saren. That person was dead and gone, but Archangel? He blamed the human couple he’d saved from the vorcha for that one.

One eyebrow ascended up her forehead and stayed there. “Bit of a melodramatic mouthful, if you ask me. Where’d that come from?”

Garrus shrugged. “Just a name some folks gave me for all my good deeds.”

“Mind if I call you Arch? It’s either that or ‘big guy’ and that could apply to a lot of people around here.”

“You know, why don’t you just call me Vakarian.” His sub vocals twanged irritably.

“That’s even more sylabus. Not as pompous though. Can I shorten it to Vic?”

“I’d rather you didn’t.”

She was leading him out of the club, their drinks half finished and forgotten. She hadn’t even paid, he noticed. Probably had a tab. “What about V?”

“Just Vakarian.”

“Maybe I’ll call you _Archy._ ”

He groaned, realizing he was never going to live his introduction down, and she chuckled as she lead the way down the hallway of holographic flames, and into the streets. Hopefully Omega’s criminals would take Archangel a bit more seriously. It usually helped if you had a gun pointed at someone. “Please, don’t.”

~~~

They relocated to a small cafe-like place in a district called Tuhi that served asari noodles and sharp smelling tea with a weird, curdled cream floating on top. They were the only customers. Shepard was inhaling a bowl of noodles while a plate of squishy bread dumplings cooled at her elbow. Human biotics, he recalled from his time spent with Lieutenant Alenko, ate constantly and were never quite satisfied.

“You can have the tea at least, it’s amino-neutral. No cream though,” she said around a mouthful, waving over the slight asari proprietor. It wasn’t hard to get her attention-- the shop was so small Garrus felt like he was sitting hunched with his knees pressed to his chest, his legs barely fitting under the table, and the woman was practically on top of them when she squeezed by to serve Shepard’s food.

He took the offered tea and sipped, noting the complex array of alien species. It reminded him of Liara, and he felt a twinge of homesickness. Not for Liara specifically, but for life on the Normandy. For home. He gave the proprietor a wary look. “Are you sure this place is safe? From eavesdroppers and… whatever? That’s what you’re worried about in Afterlife, right?”

“I’m worried about Aria. You don’t talk business in Afterlife unless Aria’s given it the OK-- and I’m not asking Aria for shit.”

“Aria-- she’s the asari who runs Omega?” He knew that already, but she’d already mentioned Aria the first time they’ed met, and he wanted to get Shep talking about something-- it seemed a broad enough topic.

Shepard laughed, short and bitter. “Aria _is_ Omega.” The asari woman behind the counter laughed too, and Shepard rolled her eyes. He’d clearly missed a joke there, but Shepard had already moved on. “We’re fine here. Being a noodle vendor lends you a certain immunity here on Omega-- because everyone loves asari noodles. Isn’t that right, Lemiel?”

“That’s right, Shep,” Lemiel said with what Garrus could only describe as an indulgent smile. Shepard was a regular, then. Lemiel knew her name and everything. Thinking back a few moments, he realized she hadn’t even ordered-- Lemiel had brought her a bowl of noodles automatically.

“Besides, Lem’s also a big fan of damping communication signals. This shop is comm-dark. Live feed bugs don’t work. That’s why it’s my favorite asari noodle house in Tuhi.”

“It’s also the only asari noodle house in Tuhi,” Lemiel pointed out.

Her second bowl of noodles arrived, and Shepard dug in with a will. Garrus continued to sip his tea, feeling impatient. He cleared his throat. “So, we can talk about it here?”

Lemiel was studiously avoiding looking at them, making a lot of scraping and chopping noises with a knife and some produce on a cutting board behind the counter.

Shepard paused her eating for a moment, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, not bothering with napkins, or to that end, manners. “What’s your guy’s name? The one you think is big time?”

“Thralog Mirki'it.”

“Can’t say I know it. Course, I’ve been gone a while. Things tend to turn over quickly on Omega.” Garrus felt a flash of disappointment and knew he was being ridiculous. Shepard exuded such an air of confidence that he half expected her to pull up coordinates and point the way right to the man’s hideout.

“I know him…” That was Lemiel. She was holding a knife, hands clenched around the handle. Then again… maybe the coordinates would be forthcoming after all. Garrus would have to remember this place. Lemiel was definitely an ally.

Shepard paused mid bite. “Lem?”

“Mean bastard. Moved in when the last sand pimp got ousted about seven months ago. He gives it out for free at first, then gets people hooked. Human and asari exclusively. Lures them in when they can’t pay and then… some aren’t ever seen again.”

Shepard exhaled through her nose, long and slow. She had stopped eating in earnest, putting down the hooked sticks that asari used for utensils with a clang of metal on ceramic bowl, a flicker of anger passing over her soft, human features. “Do you know where we can find him?”

“I can find out.” Both Shep and Garrus were staring now, and they slowly turned to each other. Garrus was smiling fierecly, feeling the burn of a potential mission. Shep was… _not_ grinning.

“Get us the intel,” she said, very quietly.

Garrus didn’t have a word for the expression on Shepard’s face-- disgust and rage mixed with perfect control. Her brows were drawn down, lips curled back just slightly.

“Shepard?”

“Slaver. That’s the oldest trick in the book, getting them hooked and then kidnapping them. Lazy. Cruel.” She took a deep breath. “If there’s one thing you need to know about me, Vakarian, it’s that I hate slavers. I meet a slaver, and that slaver dies.”

“Got it. Works for me.” Okay, wait for the intel and get Shepard talking. get her talking. Maybe learn a thing or two about her, about Omega. “What do you know about red sand production on Omega? A source I had on the Citadel said that most of the stuff out in the galaxy has been manufactured here.”

Her face calmed somewhat, the storm passing as quickly as it rose. “The red sand comes out of Kenzo district-- an area mostly controlled by Blood Pack. They aren’t involved in the manufacture, though…. just take money from them, provide protection. There’s manufacturing sheds scattered throughout the district, hidden in chop-shops and other fronts. The manufacturing equipment used is small, so it’s easy to move and the processing setups don’t stay in one place for long-- it’s mostly a bunch of small tabletop operations in the parts of the station that we could access. The bigger picture is a bit more complicated. The whole station is built around an Eezo refinery in the asteroid’s core, and that’s where the raw materials come from, but they don’t make red sand there. The eezo gets skimmed from mining operations and gets sold to manufacturers all over the place. The trade hotspots are heavily guarded warehouses. We’re talking Atlas mecs, LOKI mechs, FENRIS mechs, mechs you’ve never heard of, platoons from every major merc operation in the Traverse, and uh… lots of vorcha. And that’s when business is good. When they feel threatened, those numbers double.”

The wealth of knowledge she unleashed was like another storm, this time of information instead of emotion. “Sounds like an entire mini-economy.”

“It is. It’s not the biggest problem on Omega, but it’s pretty bad. Truth is, we could play whack-a-pyjack with manufacturers for the rest of our lives, but it wouldn’t stop production because others would just come to take their place. The only way to stop red sand is to stop the skimming operations or disrupt the supply direct from the refineries, and that’s never gonna happen. Eezo is still coming out of the asteroid, though in maybe a decade the supply will be totally gone. But right now it’s a major source of power in the Terminus systems-- really the reason Omega isn’t just the asshole of the galaxy-- eezo mining is legitimate. We can’t just shut it down.”

“You mean Omega's _not_ the asshole of the galaxy?" She gave him a flat look. "I'm pretty sure it's where the shit comes out. Why not just shut the whole mine down? Solve the problem at its source.”

“Why not? Because half of the people who live on Omega work the mines. It’s a legitimate source of livelihood. And… I’ve worked too hard to get slaves out of those mines. Lobbied with Aria for years to get her to stop using them for her own work, and killed any mine boss who didn’t listen to her order. The mine stays open.”

Garrus was staring at her. There were stories buried there-- obviously Shepard had some influence with Aria, perhaps she’d been some kind of enforcer? He didn’t get the sense that was the case now. This was exactly why he’d recruited her-- she was an insider, and he needed that insight. She _knew_ this rock. Besides, he’s seen those flashes of anger and passion streak across her face like sudden storms-- those passions that mirrored his own made him feel a little less mad. They were… alike.

“I don’t see what’s so wrong with shutting down Omega ,” he hazarded. “If it’s the eezo that’s keeping it open…”

“No.” She was breathing hard, jaw set and jutting in that stubborn human way. “Omega’s the safest place in the Terminus-- which tells you how safe the rest of the systems are for people. For humans, especially. That’s what I’m interested in stopping. You think there’s no culture out in the Terminus, just merc nests and mines and death. Right now all you can see is a haven for criminals, but… there are good people here too. People who can’t just… leave.” Another nerve touched. He should be taking notes on her triggers. So far, it was slaves and asari-- and home. Which was, as far as he could determine, Omega.

Lem came over then, and slapped a grubby scrap of paper down table between them.

“You didn’t get this from me.” Garrus took the paper slowly and Shepard leaned forward to read it when he showed it to her.

It contained an address. “That’s in Kima,” she said, mouthing the address a few times to commit it to memory. “Not far from here.” She looked up from the paper and smiled. Garrus supposed it was the kind of expression that would make most people back away slowly, but instead he found himself locking eyes and matching her grin with one of his own, mandibles flaring to show his very sharp teeth.


	5. Red Sand Blues

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Finally, some real Archangel action! 
> 
> CW for non-con drug use.

**Shepard**

“Don’t expect results,” she warned Vakarian. “Mirki'it could be long gone. Or he could be a dead end.”

They sat in a small motel room, briefing for their red sand bust. Vakarian had his gear lined up in in neat rows and was almost reverently cleaning his rifle-- the old Mantis. Nice gun.

“He’ll be there. I can feel it in my gut. And besides, your tech expert is going to hand us their communications without them even knowing. We’ll know what we’re walking into before we leave this room, and even if nothing comes of it, we can still monitor them afterwards.” He seemed so sure of himself. She didn't have the heart to tell him this wasn’t some detective story where they were going to end up ‘big damn heroes’ like Masani used to complain whenever someone pulled heroics on a mission. Most likely they would end up dead.

Seemed to be a theme with Vakarian-- he didn’t seem to care much about risk, despite how meticulous he was. Meticulous people could still be suicidal.

Shepard was more invested in her continuing existence, though. There might be slaves, and where there were slaves, there was work to do and people to execute. She’d been game to work with Vakarian before Lem had given them the address and the information. After? Shepard was committed. At least for this mission. She was looking forward to it.

The address was for a place in Kima District, not far from Gozu-- doing recon and forming a plan was child’s play. Vakarian was smart, meticulous in his planning, and obsessive over details in a way Shepard had never been, so while they occasionally differed on methods, they each brought something to the table in terms of strategy, and balanced each other out.

They also brought other people into the project.

“Vakarian, this is Grundan Krul. He’s an asshole, so just ignore the threats of bodily harm, and smile and nod when he starts in on the technobabble.”

“You talk too much, Shepard,” the batarian grumbled, dragging on one of those noxious cigarettes he choked down. Shepard waved the air to clear it, pointless as he exhaled another lungful of poison.

“And you smoke too much. Put that thing out, Krul, it’s disgusting.” He didn’t, so she opened one of the tiny windows and set the environmental controls on the wall to vent the room. As much as she wanted to to snatch the noxious stick from his clutching fingers and crush it under her heel, she resisted the urge. She closed her eyes against yearning for the satisfaction. She would resist, for the sake of team cohesion.

“Happy to have you on this with us,” Vakarian said with a nod.

“Stow it, sunshine,” Krul snapped, and went to go sit by the open window. Shepard swallowed a snort, and he shot her an annoyed look, mandible flick and all. Sunshine. Great nickname for Vakarian. “Just tell me what you need and don’t try to make friends.”

To his credit, Vakarian didn’t look offended. He was turian after all, and a good turian liked efficiency.

Vakarian brought in another fighter, a man name Sidonis. He was a hood-eyed, blunt faced turian with pale blue clan tattoos across his mandibles. Shepard had a hard time getting a read on him, and decided that Sidonis was a slippery fellow, though Vakarian vouched for his aim and his dedication to “purging Omega,” as he put it. And oddly, Sidonis seemed to idolize Vakarian, watchful and responsive, but distant. It wasn’t hero worship or seeking approval, nor was it subordinance so much as it was a deep respect. Definitely a power dynamic going on there-- something she didn’t understand because it wasn’t human. Sidonis didn’t deferred to Vakarian so much as constantly place himself below or out of the way of him, and he spoke very little, listening, watching.

As for the mission? Shepard definitely deferred to Vakarian. He’d had done his homework, and the man was obsessed with details. There were no schematics to speak of in this area-- she’d laughed when he’d asked. Schematics on Omega? Some places might have them-- but if they did, they were buried in private networks. There were no public records on Omega, no databases to which someone could submit a request, or hack to gain access to maps or a census or biometric data. Instead, Vakarian made do with taking external scans of the building they were going to hit, and the block of Omega itself, where he identified tech, mechs, and other security, and marked several exits, mapped with various alleyways and bolt routes that they might use if they needed to go to ground, all delivered neatly to their omnitool navs. She was impressed-- mostly because Shepard tended not to plan things in advance beyond the basics of an entry and exit plan. Vakarian had five of each.

The first, and hopefully only entry plan was a basic one, and revolved around her biotics, and being human. Bait. They listened to comm chatter for a while, and picked up some names. Veek was the one heard most often, and she was willing to bet he was a dealer. That would be her in. Name drop him and then… mayhem.

Krul didn’t need to be near the building in order to hack into their systems, and didn’t like to be in the middle of a fight, so he’d stay put. Vakarian had already done a scan of the building and found the information any hacker would need. Krul started the systems hack, patching into their comm networks so they could eavesdrop. The batarian was swearing merrily, and lit another cigarette, which meant that Krul was as happy as Krul could manage. He was in his element.

As they prepped, Shepard paused and looked around with a little flash of doubt. God, what was she doing, playing whack-a-pyjak with red sand dealers on _Omega_? She should be on a ship, leading strikes against big time slavers in the Traverse, not moonlight as a vigilante with some turian she’d just met.

But a mean little voice in the back of her head pointed out the obvious: she couldn’t pass up an opportunity to piss of Aria. You’d think she’d have grown out of that by now, being nearly thirty years old and all. She told the little voice to go off and fuck itself, to come back later because right now she was busy, but the little voice wasn’t done with her yet. She stole a glance at Vakarian and it whispered a name to her-- _Nihlus._ God _damn_ it she wasn't just trying to replace the dead Specter. She just got on really well with turians, always had. She was drawn to competence, because anything else was a waste of time and would get her, or the people around her, killed. And like Aria, she recognized talent when she saw it and didn’t like to let that talent slip away.

_There was no doubt about it. Vakarian was talented._

He was coaxing Krul into talking through the finer points of the in progress communications hacking, and keeping up far better than Shepard would have. She scowled. It had been a sad day for Shepard when omni-gel had become obsolete-- she always prefered biotics and big explosions to tech. Vakarian was saying something about patching comm signals through his visor, isolating frequencies and feeding them back through the node and... and she wondered if there was anything the man couldn’t do-- sniper, tactician, technician, weapons… nerd. There was one things she knew he wasn’t worth a damn at though, something she was an expert in. He was a horrible liar. He wore his intentions like another set of armor, encasing himself in the certainty of his actions. Irritatingly, she found it more endearing than any sort of failing. At least turian biotics were rare-- she’d only ever known Nyreen to be one. Oh, if turians were biotics he’d probably be one and be good at that, too, which would make him wholly insufferable. He probably couldn’t cook. Maybe he wasn’t a good driver. Couldn’t train a varen to play dead, even. And he was probably a lousy kisser, not having lips and all.

Was she feeling… _competitive_? Of course she was. She was a highly specialised killing machine. She was the best of the best when it came to close combat and biotics. It was only natural to feel a certain tension when encountering a kindred spirit.

 _“_ Ready, Shepard? Sidonis?”

Shepard hopped down from the desk she was sitting on, her thoughts on the subject of Vakarian and Omega and the mission veiled by a bored expression, and grabbed her duffle bag, stuffed with her hardsuit and loadout. She wore a faded, out-of-fashion jumpsuit that’s she’d found in the hangar, a holdout from her teen years. It was a bit short at the wrists and ankles, and tight around the hips-- her chest, and the rest of her had stayed pretty flat, though. Shepard had a hard time throwing things away, and it occasionally came in handy. Her chin-length red curls were a mess of tangles, with a touch of smudged makeup on her face to really sell it.

For today’s performance: red sand addict, staring Nym Shepard.

Krul stayed behind, and the trio headed to the address that Lemiel had provided them. Good old Lem, always in the know on Omega, but never obtrusive enough to get herself in trouble. Lem was a good one.

She tossed the duffel bag to Vakarian. “Anything happens to my gear?” she warned, “And it happens back to you. Tenfold.”

“Relax Shepard. Something’s more likely to happen to you. First contact with the enemy and all. Then you won’t even need the gear.”

“Are you always this cheerful?”

“Unfailingly. There’s something about the prospect of taking down drug lords that just really makes me want to sing.”

Sidonis might as well not have been there, for all that he was not getting in on the banter. Okay, maybe she only got along with funny turians. So far she’d only met two, and one of them was dead. This one…. she’d like to see him stay alive.

“Now there’s a thought,” she sighed. “Turians don’t sing.”

“There are reasons for that.” That was Sidonis.

Then she held up her hands and closed her eyes. “Silence please. I need to get in character.”

Who was she? She was someone who wanted red sand, badly. She was someone who was in the wrong place but didn’t care, because she was was desperate. She didn’t have any money, and would try to charm or beg her way into what she wanted. She was someone who knew a man on the inside: Veek.

Sidonis and Vakarian were around the corner, keeping to cover until she gave the all-clear. She hit the door comm and tried to look fidgety as she studiously avoided glancing at the cameras she knew were there above her. She hit the comm again and after a long moment, it hissed open. “What you want?” Vorcha. Good and dumb.

“Veek has stuff for me.”

“Veek busy. Go away! Go away!”

She peered around the vorcha to get a look inside. It was an entry way, with another door on the end of a long corridor. Perfect.

“Veek said I could come in if he was busy. I can wait.” She let her biotics flare weakly, but she kept her gaze tough-- one did not get a drug hookup by being a wilting flower on Omega. One got dead by being a wilting flower on Omega.

The vorcha hit his comm and growled into it. “Woman here. Sand bitch. Want see you! I tell her go-- Yes. Yes.” Krul would be on the other end of that comm, giving orders to the vorcha instead of Veek. Krul was… good. And he always sounded so pissed off no one would argue with him.

“Come. Wait here. Veek say let you in!” The vorcha was practically yelling into her face and she smiled, twitching away and wringing her hands. She was in.

The door slid shut and she glanced around the room. A foyer of sorts, with a door on the other side that lead to… what looked like a hallway. Some stairs. The vorcha was standing guard over her, and kept glancing at the door. Three more Vorcha with machine guns stood guard along the wall. This was serious.

The pistol at the small of her back itched for her to take it, but not just yet... She was walking behind the vorcha who had let her in, and pulled a knife from her sleeve, jumping on his back and slitting his throat. It wasn’t the most graceful kill, but she turned, using his body as cover should the other guards react and start before she could hit them with her biotics. They were slow, not quite believing what they were seeing, and she manifested a pull field on the three guards. They floated away gently, bumping against the ceiling. She let the dying vorcha fall and finally took out her pistol, which lay muzzle up and flush against her spine. Vakarian had modded a silencing, the long tube making the weapon a bit unfamiliar, so she didn’t rush.

She took aim at each floating vorcha’s head one by one, and pulled the trigger. It was the work of moments and the hushed whine and whump of the silenced shot would not be audible outside of the room. Each guard fell bonelessly to the floor, death extracting them from her biotic field.

That was… cool. Badass. She’d infiltrated on missions before, but that pistol mod? Sweet. She might not be a tech laden sneak with fancy gadgets, but who said a biotic couldn't be an assassin?

She was back at the first vorcha, who was dead now, blood pooling around him. She searched for and extracted his security credentials from his omnitool and used it to open the front door. “All clear,” she said over the channel, letting a hint of of smugness infuse the word. She was good, and this was fun.

She beckoned to the two turians with a quick flick of her hand. Over their comm Krul snapped out, “Mechs and surveillances are down. You have ten minutes.”

The rest of the infiltration process was much less stealthy. Vakarian tossed her her gear and she dressed quickly-- in thirty seconds she had her jumpsuit off and her armor on, fixing her shotgun to the mag clips at the small of her back. She and Sidonis marched down the hall, flanking Vakarian as he led the way, and shot up anything that shot first. The hall lead to a compound of storage rooms, staff rooms… and then, an open living area. Fancy couches, tables. A work area scattered with loose red sand and baggies-- some lackies had been hard at work. There was…. a lot of red sand here, some lose, some in pressurized shipping crates meant for space transport. There was also a lot of tech: A half dozen mechs along one wall and lots of piles of junk. She was counting the minutes they had until the mechs came back online. Seven.

The king of the castle sat on his throne. Thralog Mirki'it was a batarian, and he was not smiling. He had a damn eyepatch on one eye like a pirate from an old earth vid, and his very sharp teeth were very brown, some missing.

“Who the fuck are you?” Mirk’it spat. He had a pistol.

“Archangel,” Vakarian replied. So was Archangel his name…. or…. the name of…. their squad? Shepard hadn’t quite figured it out, but it seemed to be working.

Mirki’it was remarkably calm-- though he was on his own turf, so it sort of made sense. He glanced at the mechs with a frown before turning her attention back Archangel. 

"So you are real, and not the ravings of a lunatic. Twelve of my guards are dead, but more are on the way. Blue Suns, too. What do you want?”

“To kill you,” Vakarian said simply. At those words, they all dove for cover, and Mirk’it open fired. The fight was pretty one sided, and over quickly when Mirki’it went down with a gunshot wound to the throat. He was still alive though, and screaming through the hole in his neck. Vakarian dragged the man over to the red sand table and pressed the his face into the loose powder, rubbing it into the table so blood and drugs mixed into a thick paste. “Hey, Shepard?” he growled.

“Yeah?” she said faintly, watching him, fascinated.

“What’s that human expression for getting back what you deserve.”

“Revenge, you mean? There are… several expressions. ‘One good turn deserves another’?” she hazarded. Not what he was looking for? “I’m partial for ‘what goes around, comes around,’ myself. Or… ‘an eye for an eye.’”

“That’s the one. I do like how humans have a way with language. It’s colorful.” He said it so casually, with his hand crushing the batarian’s skull into a pile of red sand so it got in every orifice. Mirk’it had begun to overdose, convulsions wracking his body. “You’re going to take every… last… ounce… of red sand you’ve dealt out on this station.” Vakarian said to the kingpin as he let the him drop to the floor where he jumped and jerked like a sick and bleeding puppet, and then Vakarian turned to his squad. His face was calm, almost serene.

“Sidonis, disable the mechs for good. We’ve got about a minute before they come back online. Shepard, let’s do a sweep of the room.” Sidonis nodded once and cast the overdosing  man one last glance before going to do his job.

The gurgles of the dying man followed her as Vakarian and Shepard split up to do a sweep of the room. Vakarian was ruthless. She honestly hadn’t seen it coming-- he was smart, easy going with his people, with Krul even, and she sensed an odd sort of kindness in him that was deeply at odds with the act she'd just witnessed. Shepard had seen a lot of sick things in her time in the Traverse and the Terminus, but righteous justice, pure and simple? That was rare. Mercs were usually assholes, sure, but they were out for number one, themselves. She’d worked with plenty of pieces of work, with egos and vendettas and greed, but…. feeding a drug kingpin his own medicine? He wasn’t even getting paid for this, as far as she knew. He just… cared that much? Wanted to make a statement? She wasn’t sure if she was awed… or disgusted.

She hadn't decided which it was when she found the door. Before she could input the security overrides, it slid open on its own and a human man burst through it, screaming. He had a knife, ready to gut her. “Eezo sucker,” he hissed, “Sandy bitch!!” Shepard grappled with him for a brief moment, happy he hadn’t come out shooting. She could deal with knives, though it was a bit of a scramble, fingers not finding a good purchase as she avoided getting stabbed.

“Hey, hey! No need for slurs!” she shouted as she managed a grip his knife arm and used his momentum to slam his head against the door frame. “Have a little respect for the communities you serve!” He fell to the floor and Shepard looked up, and in that moment she decided that Archangel had been right to dose Mirk’it. “Oh, _fuck_ me," she breathed quietly. She raised her voice to bellow for Vakarian. “Archangel! We have over a dozen civies-- collared and sedated.”

The room beyond was dark and filthy, and filled to bursting with about thirteen humans, some locked in stupor, others pacing in the small amount of free space, muttering. They were all heavy red sand users, she could tell by the way their skin was grayish, hot and blistered, and the red tinged eyes and the weak bioitc flares that flashed here and there, hardly strong enough to make hair stand on end. In withdrawal, then. And they all wore collars.

She dropped to a crouch to pick up the man who’d been guarding these people like they were cattle she’d come to steal. “Do you think these people belong to you?” She felt a tiny, comforting flutter of rage, waking slowly like an old friend. “What are you doing with them? Huh?” He didn’t answer, so Shepard punched the man’s nose. It broke, crunching under her fist. It took a few more punches for him to start talking, curled up on the ground and bleeding.

“Ge-getting ready to ship,” he stammered.

“Where?”

“Off Omega. The buyer’s he-here tomorro-row.” She kicked him again, and he groaned.

Vakarian was there in a moment, and peered into the back room, growling. The human was looking at him with a mix of fear and hope, and Vakarian laughed.

“Something _funny_ , big guy?” She asked, voice sharp, irritated that he thought this was a time for laughter.

“He thinks I’m gonna be the good cop.” Vakarian put a two-toed boot to the man’s throat and pressed down. “He should know there are no good cops on Omega.” To the man he said: “Your boss is dying of a red sand overdose. It’s not pretty, and he’s not going to last long. Might as well spare yourself the same fate and answer my friend’s questions.”

Shepard didn’t like torture, but she was good at it. She’d had an excellent teacher in Aria after all. Find the weak spot, and push till just before breakage. Pull back. Push again. In this case it was easy, all she had to do was stick a gun in the slaver’s eye and twist it a bit. Slavers were selfish cowards-- her reputation was overblown. Fighting slavers, killing them, taking down their impenetrable rings was easy, if you ignored the bullet. They had simple desires, and thus were easy to manipulate. Money and power. Power and fear. Simple.

Shepard got down on the man’s level and peered into his eyes. What sort of person could sell people? People! Would his eyes reveal those secrets, give her some clue as to how he had come to this? He was human! His eyes were blue, sort of pretty. He was vaguely handsome, with sandy hair. She hated him. “I want to hear about your process,” she said carefully, slowly. “What you do with these people. How you get them.”

“Addicts,” he muttered, avoiding her gaze. “They’re just sand addicts that we hook up with product and then when they can’t afford it anymore we lure them in and nab them. Sell them off-station to a couple of different buyers.”

“Names. Who’s buying?” The man was silent and Vakarian pressed down with his boot, cutting off air. Apparently Vakarian was also good at torture. Upon release of his windpipe, the human sputtered and coughed. He gave them a name.

“I only know the broker! Feleog Kerk,” he gasped. “He’s up in the 93rd, has a hanger there where he does flesh trades.” At the phrase “flesh trades,” Shepard pulled the trigger on her pistol, her finger twitching before she'd consciously thought to shoot the informat. The sound was nothing more than a small wump of air and the man died. Vakarian was silent as well.

“What do we do with them?” he asked, jerking his head to the slaves.

Shepard looked around the room. The slaves were in storage, hadn’t be “flesh traded” yet and they were still new to control-- but not new to drugs. They needed medical care and a safe place to hide, to recover. She checked one, then another, and found a neural control chip behind the right ear, the small wounds newly healing. They needed those out, as well. That meant they needed transport.

She popped up her omnitool and searched the rough database of Omega locations and services. It wasn’t official, more of a citizen maintained resource than anything that had been consciously created by any official source. Certainly Aria would never bother with something so rational and serviceable as a list of services and she couldn’t see the Blue Suns putting manpower into such public works. The thought of a Suns merc sitting at a terminal trying to compile a list of ‘Best Eats on Gozu’ was an intrusive, and amusing though. “There’s a clinic not far from here back in Gozu,” she murmured. “Moving them is going to be a nightmare but… I’ve got a shuttle.”

Vakarian’s head head snapped around to look at her. “Would have been useful to know about before,” he said with an edge of annoyance in his dual-toned voice.

“Hey, that shuttle and I have been through hell and back. I don’t just pop her out for joy rides to impress my friends.”

“You’d impress me if you went to get it,” he growled. “Sidonis and I will clean things up here and keep them… I don’t know… stable?”

“Lock the door again. If they get into the red sand, you’ll be screwed.”

It took about an hour, all told. Vakarian and Sidonis were on clean up, and she hated every minute of leaving them alone with the almost rescued slaves. If someone came to check up on the operation, they’d be sitting exposed with a mountain of red sand, a pile of corpses, and a room full of people who were heading for slavery. Not a pretty picture. Given the little she knew about him he’d do something stupid and heroic (or seriously fucked up) to try and take out whatever ganger or merc group that found him and get himself killed. So, she paid the driver double to speed to one of her hangar access routes (there were about half a dozen was she could get home), and sped in her shuttle the whole way back. Not that there were speed regs in Omega, of course. Fast was normal in Omega, which meant speeding was a deathwish.

She made it though-- and apparently an hour wasn’t long enough to get Vakarian or Sidonis killed, and they had even cleaned up the compound. Red sand was burning in barrels and there was a pile of tech Vakarian was apparently taking as well. He would be coming back for the mechs, too. Looks like her shuttle was going to get some action. They immediately start hustling the sedated and ragged humans into the shuttle, taking turns getting the humans from door to door. There wasn’t a ton of room in her transport, but they managed to get all of them, Sidonis pressed in the back. Vakarian slammed into the passenger side seat and when Sidonis banged an “all clear” on the metal side with his fist she was off the ground again. It was clean. Almost surgical. Took five minutes. Krul locked down the compound, and then got to work playing random comm chatter so anyone listening in would think all was well. He also got into their network and started looking for messages to this Feleog Kerk. Krul grumbled that he was tired, but Shepard set him to making sure Kerk still thought that the trade was going to happen tomorrow. They needed to take him out. She’d have to remember to get Krul something nice later. Maybe a Cerberus scalp.

“Should we let the clinic know we’re coming?” Vakarian was in the passenger side seat, Sidonis was in the back with the humans, and Shepard drove.

Shepard laughed. “And have them close shop so they don’t have to deal with us? I’m thinking no.”

“People do that?” He sounded incredulous.

“Omega is all about not making other people’s problems your own. Once again, Vakarian,” she breathed, “You are really bad at Omega.”

“I don’t know Shepard, I’d say we did pretty well for ourselves.” That was Sidonis. It was the first thing he’d addressed her directly to her since the mission started. She shrugged.

“I’ll feel better when we get these people to ground.

At the clinic they were met by a balding man in his forties who introduced himself as Butler. He was armed with a pistol, and said he assisted with the clinic by doing triage and basic first aid, as well as providing security. “I’m a nurse with a gun,” he sighed, resigned as they hustled him over to the shuttle.

He peered inside the dim interior and his eyebrows shot up several inches. “Sand slaves?” His voice was a light baritone, and Shepard heard kindness there, but also weariness.

“More than that. They’ve been implanted with control chips. We need to find a way to get those removed and treat any symptoms of withdrawal they’re having. Preferably not with more red sand.”

“Gotcha.” His omnitool lit up and he hit a few buttons. “I’ve put in a call for the Professor. And you are…”

“Concerned citizens,” Vakarian offered.

“Notorious busybodies,” Shepard supplemented.

“Impatient,” Sidonis said, a dangerous growl in his lower vocals.

Butler stared at them for a moment, and apparently decided they were for real, drawing his own conclusions. They must make a funny trio-- two big, well armed turians and a lanky human woman in asair armor, runaway slaves in tow. “Riiiight. Well, concern yourselves with getting these people into the clinic.”

~~~

“The Professor” turned out to be a salarian by the name of Mordin Solus. He was old, probably nearing his mid forties. One of his curving horns was half missing and he had scars etched into his lined and grizzled face, sink fading from a russet color that matched her hair into white points around his nose and mouth. His eyes were a bright black, and spoke to Shepard of brilliance and maybe a touch of madness. She didn’t know him-- he must be new on the station. He made her nervous, though. She didn’t like doctors. They often discovered things about her that she didn’t want anyone to know about-- like the multiple amp upgrades, the gene therapy, the cybernetics.

She beat a retreat to the shuttle as soon as she saw that Butler and Solus had things in hand. She and Vakarian sat side by side on the open, cargo side of her shuttle, arguing in low, fierce tones while Sidonis paced and listened.

“Taking out the slave deal tomorrow is not in question, Shepard. I just don’t think rushing in blind is the best way to do it.” They both agreed that they needed to go break up the flesh trade that Feleog Kerk was going to run the next day, but their opinions as to best practices differed.

Shepard wanted to go in, guns blazing with a frontal assault. Vakarian wanted to find a nest and snipe from a distance while Shepard sat on her hands, running backup interference. Clean and surgical. Really not her style. She pointed out that snipers needed time to plan their layout, and while they were setting up shots innocents could be taken hostage, targets could move out of sight lines, or simply vanish. Being on the killing floor made sense to her, but she also knew they were each planning to their strengths, and without any more backup, it looked like Shepard’s plan was the safe one. Snipers either worked alone, or as backup for a larger group.

“My biotics aren’t really the ‘hit from a distance and watch things explode’ sort-- I can’t work at range.”

“I can cover you, Shepard.”

“Reassuring, but untested.”

“The dead vorcha seemed to think otherwise.”

“I like you, Vakarian, but you’re pushing it.”

Sidonis piped up. He had been processing some deep internal struggle and had obviously come to a conclusion. “I’ll go. I’ll back up Shepard on the floor. Vakarian can find a perch.”

That’s when Butler came over, removing his lab coat to reveal a dusty brown jumpsuit with bule pockets. “I’m in too,” he said simply. “I’m not just a medic. I’m good for a fight.”

“Hey, I like medics. Medics are good, considering we’re probably going to get shot at.” She nodded to Butler, who inclined his balding head towards her congenially.

Vakarian grinned, and Shepard sighed. Looks like they were going full frontal, with a sniper for backup and coordination.

“This is gonna be a statement, Shepard. No more flesh trades. I’m going up to the 93rd to do some recon. The rest of you, prep gear and go do some target practice or something. Get some sleep. Keep a comm channel open and I’ll have the details soon.” They all nodded, accepting his orders.

Shepard had come to a decision regarding her feelings about Vakarian’s brutal behavior. Forcing a red sand kingpin to overdose on his own poison was poetic, and the least he deserved for dealing in flesh. She might not be forcing overdoses on anyone in the near future, but she wasn’t in any position to critique him, especially when he was so effective.

“Keep your heads down,” she warned. The last thing she wanted was for Aria to find out. “No speaking about this. To anyone.”

Tomorrow was going to be fun.


	6. High & Wild

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sting operation! Teambuilding! Some things go better than planned, some worse. Sidonis does not like Shepard and Vakarian's flirting. 
> 
> CW for even more non-con drug use.

**Shepard**

Raid day dawned as it usually did on Omega-- hazy, smelling of garbage and ozone.

Shepard wouldn't let anyone else drive her shuttle, but grudgingly gave Vakarian the ignition codes just in case something happened and he needed the wheel. He grinned. “Big step,” he commented from his spot in the passenger side seat. “I think you’re starting to trust me. Maybe even like me.”

“Don’t flatter yourself. I’m changing the codes once the raid is done.”

“Fair enough. I’d be a bit creeped out if you didn’t.”

Sidonis ground an annoyed note in his second larynx. “Will you two quit flirting? You’re making me ill.”

“I think that’s Shepard’s driving.” That was Butler, sounding tart yet somehow diplomatic. The man should probably be sainted.

Glancing over, Vakarian looked too smug by half so she took a hairpin right turn into an approaching alley. There was a satisfying thud in the back and two voices cursed in unison, in two different languages her translator didn’t quite parce. Vakarian pitched in his seat and laughed, bracing against the dash. “The hell, Shepard?”

“Shortcut,” she grunted. It _was_ actually a shortcut, avoiding the main drag and thus any eyes watching that approach but more importantly, points had to be made about her driving skills-- she was reckless, but she was an excellent driver. Bad, reckless drivers were not long lived, and Shepard had been driving this shuttle since she was sixteen.

They parked on the edge of the operational zone, and everyone fell in. Vakarian left them immediately for his intended perch above, ready to cover them with sniper fire. Butler and Sidonis flanked her-- she had command of the ground team.

They sprinted to the hangar entrance, and she saw the door open. “Cover, now!” A Blue Suns solder went pinwheeling from Vakarian’s shot above, and then the fight was on. Shots fired, blood spilled. Butler had some tech know how, and she set him to wearing down shields and doing pistol damage when he could, while Sidonis sprayed bullets from his assault rifle. This was easy-- Shepard knew the Blue Suns, and exactly how to fight them.

“I’m going to push forward to the door” she said over the comm.

“You mean throw yourself into the enemy with biotics?” That was Vakarian, over the comm. He’d moved ahead and was sniping men as they came through the exit. There was just ten meters of open ground between her and the compound.

“Ready, boys?”

“No,” Butler muttered miserably. “Not at all. My wife is going to kill me.”

She grinned, and was gone in a crackle of blue. The next moment, she hit the ground hard, knocking back the remaining Blue Suns in a nimbus of blue.

“You are _right_ in my scope, Shepard!” Vakarian sounded more annoyed than panicked. Butler and Sidonis were sprinting to catch up with her, Butler muttering what sounded like ‘shitshitshit’ as they put bullets in the people between them. She shot the last merc in the chest so he flew backwards and died with a groan.

She grinned up at where she thought Vakarian was nesting, soaring gently on the waves of adrenaline. “Good aim is one thing. Knowing when to shoot and when not to is another skill entirely. Guess it means I trust you. Oh, and incidentally we have the door.” She hit the scanner and it slid open, obliging. Vakarian would go in through the upper levels of the hangar, so they didn’t wait for him.

They didn’t have much of a fight inside, because most of the Suns had fallen back to the main docking area of the hangar. Shepard and her squad burst in and slid into cover. It was a massive room, big enough for a frigate to dock with room to spare. And there was a friggage there. Shepard took a scan of it’s IDs for later-- right now she was focused on the forty people lined up against the wall of the hangar, being inspected by a huge batarian in full armor. Behind him were a range of other slavers of different races-- a few bare faced turians, an asari huntress, a human, a… hanar. And a drell woman. Nice to see such a diverse group of races working together for a common goal. Her jaw set, and she started shooting the Blue Suns from cover, working them down as the batarian in black roared: “Protect the cargo!”

There were also a lot… of Blue Suns, many of them who were dying as Vakarian got to work from above.

“No civilian casualties,” she hissed to Sidonis and Butler. “Not. One.” They got to work, her biotics screaming and rending armor and shields, her pull floating enemies up for Vakarian to pick off at his leasure.

Finally everyone was either in cover or dead, and Shepard looked around.

“I’m looking for Kerk!” She roared into the echoing hangar. She saw movement: one of the turians, apparently a buyer was trying to head for the frigate with the Drell woman roughly in tow, and she took careful aim and shot him in the knee, where she had clear sight around the Drell. Slave. Another slave. The woman snarled and turned on her master, breaking his neck with a snap, before she fled, seeking cover. Self preservation instincts still intact, ability to snap necks in place. She’d be fine. “Kerk, come on out so we can chat!” In the resulting silence she heard Sidonis and Butler shift nervously, and pressed a finger to her lips and shook her head for them to remain still. They were both wide eyed and breathing hard, looking like blurred and pulsing shadows in the harsh red light of the hangar.

Slowly, Kerk stood, surrounded by slaves, using them to shield himself. He was the batarian in black armor, just as she’d suspected. A red dot danced on his chest. Vakarian had his shot but Shepard noticed something…. “Vakarian, hold your shot! He’s got a grenade!”

Kerk pulled the pin and she heard the metal ping and bounce along the floor. He held up the small round explosive. “Now it looks like we get to have a little chat, bitch,” he said. “You shoot me, I drop this, your humans go boom. Mission failure. You drop your weapons and call off the sniper, and we talk.” The slaves stood impassively around him.

“Shepard, he’s bluffing…” Vakarian warned.

She ignored him. Shepard didn’t negotiate with slavers. She took a breath and flung herself along her nerves, shooting forward on her bioitc charge that would put her right on top of Kerk, knocking the slaves back and containing the blast it with her biotic shields.

What she was doing was crazy. She knew it. But it would work! She’d trained for this kind of biotic combat, using herself as a projectile and minimizing damages with barriers and detonations. She could feel it in her gut.

Well, it went the way she thought it would, up until the grenade exploded in her face-- but it wasn’t an explosive. It was red sand. Like the pressurized shipping containers, but packaged into a small but powerful aerosol-based grenade.

Shepard screamed as the very air burned her exposed mouth and nose, and her barrier came up hard to contain the blast, but there, trapped in the biotic void around her was a cloud of red sand and she was choking, inhaling the stuff-- it was in her eyes, her nose, on her tongue. The slaves around her and Krul shuffled forward at the scent and sight of their addiction in the air, and she was reminded of old Earth vids of mindless husks-- zombies, shuffling forward, demanding brains. Or in this case, red sand.

The drug was absorbed through membranes, and it was everywhere within her biotic barrier. She was on fire with power. She was suddenly and horribly very, very high. Intoxicated, impervious to the hands that grasped for her, impervious to bullets, but about to be consumed by energy of her own making. Her vision shifted red and Shepard was screaming as her nerves begged for release, head thrown back and arms spread wide. She was _levitating_. She felt a biotic surge burn through and threaten to consume her. The dark energy was… violet, tinged with black. Panicking, working on pure instinct and muscle memory, she dropped to the floor, slamming it with her fist as she discharged her barrier in a flashing nova of dark energy that sent the ground quaking… _that_ wasn’t something she could normally do.

 _Cool,_ she thought faintly.

The mob was thrown back by several meters, Kerk included, and they floated bonelessly. She’d just detonated her barrier into a throw that ended in a pull field. Was that even possible? Sidonis and Butler were down too, thought they were spared by their considerable distance from her, rolling away and trying to recover their muscle control. She was the only one standing at the center of her blast radius, and she gathered power into her balled fists that glowed a violent blue, guns forgotten. Her eyes fell on Kerk and she screamed again, voice flickering and modulated by the crackle of her biotic rage.

He was on the ground, disjointed limbs bouncing gently as he floated. She saw Sidonis grab Butler by the wrist and pull him back, away from her and what she was about to do-- in the resulting chaos of her boitics, the rest of the slavers were dying from bullets-- the boys were taking care of cleanup as usual. She grabbed Kerk by the throat, and his four eyes sought her two through paralysis.

“You did this,” she slurred, and slammed her fist into his brain, by way of his lower left eye. She felt the flesh and bone part-- it wasn’t so much a shattering as it was disintegration, like slipping her hand into a pool of warm, resistant liquid-- or maybe sliding fingers into a brick of butter. Kerk died instantly and dropped to the ground, gravity taking over for her and she staggered away, feeling his life pass under her hands.

She heard a turian curse her translator didn’t parce. She wasn’t sure which turian, but she knew-- vague and detached, that she was currently very, very scary. She shuddered as the pinkish and frothy gore dripped from her hand.

 _Not cool,_ she thought, starting to panic.

Disgusting. Exhilarating. She’d never be sober again. It felt… so good. Oh, this was not good. How much red sand did she just inhale? It was going to kill her. This is how she was going to die. Accidental fucking overdose on a drug she’d never once touched. An image flashed through her mind: Thralog Mirki'it being pressed to the table with Vakarian’s hand crushing him, choking on red sand and blood. Mirki’it’s limbs started twitching and he was doing the macabre dance of red sand overdose.

She was _fucked._ This was how she was going to die. She tried to gather herself-- she could go to the clinic, get a detox and some anticonvulsants and… she took a step and faltered. The ground seemed to be made of elastic, like a trampoline, giving under her weight and then bouncing her back up, gently. How long had it been? Probably seconds but it felt like years.

Damn, why couldn’t it at least be Hallex? That would have been chill. She didn’t want to die with her right hand covered in batarian brains, her biotics burning her through to the core. She was going to die, and when she died, she’d explode, and take everyone with her.

Convulsions set in quickly as the overdose took hold. She fell over, rigid and twitching as her nervous system lost control and she began to seize. She pissed her armor-- good thing there were bio-redundancies and filters in there for just that occurrence. It was hard to pee in space, after all. Her tongue got in the way of clamping teeth and her vision went full red as her eyes rolled up behind her skull. She was flaring biotics, sparks of blue-black energy rippling over her skin and making her a shock to anyone who touched her.

She had to… get rid of…

Something sharp pricked her neck. After a moment she was vaguely aware that Butler was there, with a hypo pressed to her jugular. Whatever Butler had given her worked and the convulsions slowed and then stopped after a few moments. She saw more vague shapes and realized Vakarian was out of his nest, that he and Sidonis were on crowd control, shoving back the half-stunned addicts with the long sides of their rifles. She sighed. Now she was a different kind of high, floating in a void between rage and submission. She’d just lie there for a while if that was okay with everyone.

She tried to inform Butler that just lying there for a while was the new plan. If she held really still, maybe she wouldn’t explode.

“Butler, radio your people, tell them we need medical attention. Take Shepard’s shuttle.” That was Vakarian, his voice close by and sharp with command. A moment’s pause. “There are two more overdosing.” Butler was gone from her side, and she moaned but a few moments later someone was touching her again, and asking her questions that were easy to answer, delivered calmly. Nice voice.

“Can you move your hands? Good.” Good? She’d move her hands if it made her a good person. “Move your legs. Neck? Excellent, you’re doing fine.” She was pretty fine, wasn’t she? Eyes rolled and her lids squeezed shut then fluttered open and she managed to focus on the person with all the questions and the praise. Silver plates, blue tattoos. Mandibles. Hey, Vakarian.

“You have mandibles,” she pointed out. Her tongue felt too big, and she tasted blood.

“Don’t talk right now, okay?” Why did he look so worried? She tried to ask but he was shaking his head while his mandibles twitched, making her dizzy, leaving blooms of sickly color and trails of fractal light in his wake. It would have been pretty if it didn’t make her want to throw up. She closed her eyes.

There was a pause, then Vakarian’s voice came out tight and slow. “What’s normal human body temp?”

“Around 37c.” Butler was back.

“Fuck, she’s burning up. Is it safe to move her?”

“Probably a good idea for her, if you want her to live. But if she lets off a flare… Might not be so safe for you. Or whatever transport you’re in.”

“That’s what shields are for. I’ll take the risk-- you get everyone else on the shuttle.”

“Are you sure, Arch?”

Heh, Arch. He didn’t like that name. Better than Archy. Better than _Sunshine._

“I can’t ask you or Sidonis to take that risk, and I am _not_ leaving her to OD.” That seemed to be his answer.

“There’s a car just there.” Butler. Like a servant from old-time earth. He were always so helpful and efficient, so caring, needing to serve.

“Get these people into the shuttle. Can you and your and Sidonis handle the rest of cleanup here?”

There was a pause. Maybe Butler said yes. Maybe he would abandon everyone. Say fuck it. She wouldn’t blame him.

“What’d you give her?”

“An anticonvulsant-- I’ll send the drug interactions to the Professor. Don’t let her fall asleep.”

Some small and far away part of Nym’s brain told her she was in deep, deep trouble. She couldn’t be too worried about it even though her heart was somehow very slowly racing away from her and time was stretching into space and kind of mixing all around and she was very dizzy. She lost the thread of rapid fire conversation, just letting that soothing, confident voice lead her through the waves of her high, in and out of cresting waves of nausea and the burning of her nerves.

She felt hands on her again, checking for injury along her torso and her limbs, and she moaned as the weird sensation of being lifted took over. There was a nice feeling too, one of a deep rumble coming from the body that held her.

“Are you purring?” Turians purred, she remembered. “Nihlus? Where’re we going?”

“To the clinic. Just hang on.”

“Nihlus?”

“It’s Vakarian.” His voice sounded tight… Strained. “Just hang on, Shepard.”

“I’m sorry.” Her body was being propped up, and she was alone for a minute, but she kept talking. “Could have been on Eden Prime. Never liked Saren. Told you not to go. Don’t go.” She felt a thump, like a door closing. “Where did you go?” She was getting upset. Nihlus was going… oh… no, he shouldn’t do that, shouldn’t go. He’d get shot if he left.

“I’m right here.” She felt an arm press across her chest. Her caretaker was back. She was not feeling well, not at all, but gentled under the pressure. It was Vakarian, though. Not Nihlus.

“Where are they?” she asked.

“Who?”

“Saren and Nihlus.”

“Saren and Nihlus are dead.”

“I know,” she said. Obviously they were dead, she wasn’t stupid. “Do you know them?”

“I knew Saren.”

“Nihlus is my...teach. Mentor. He’s...” Good? “I don’t feel good.”

“I know. We’re going to get help.”

“What about our slaves? Ugh.” She clenched her teeth. “Nnng.” Wrong words. “The slaves? Red sa-- Sand. Slaves?”

“Butler is taking good care of them.”

“Good. Butler is... good person.” She lapsed into silence. Butler. What was a man like that doing on Omega? “He should be sainted. Saint Butler. Saint of… anticonvulsants.” She mangled the last word, slurring it. Okay, stick to fewer syllables. Two or less. Her tongue hurt, and she tasted blood. “ You know who else is good?”

“Who’s good, Shepard?”

“Vakarian.. He’s good.” She felt heavy and sick. “Archangel. Dumb name. It works. Preeeety good.”

“You’re doing great Shepard. Almost there. What are you feeling right now?”

As if to answer, she threw up on his arm. To his credit, he didn’t even flinch.

“Hot... ” she whispered through the bile. She was really, really hot. “Hot! Everything red....” Her voice wined out the last word and she wanted to scream again and she felt nerves flaring, begging for release.

“Shit… Hey! Shep- Shepard!” Vakarian was yelling, and she felt a hand on her shoulder, squeezing. Pain. It got her attention and she momentarily stopped worrying about being so damn hot.

“Yeah?”

“Almost there. Why don’t you tell me about Nihlus?”

“He’s dead. Died on Eden Prime with a bullet in his brain. Bullet from a friend. Betrayed. They got him though. Saren. Was-- didn’t look for him my-self. To-busy playing po-litics on the Citadel. Trapped.” She should probably feel something about Nihlus being dead, but she didn’t feel much of anything besides heat, and an armored arm pressing her upright, into the seat she occupied. “I hate space stations.” She was tired. Tired of talking. She missed his voice. "Your voice,” she sighed. "It's good."

There was a pause but then Vakarian talked, though she couldn’t follow his words anymore. It was just the sound of his voice that she followed away from the spinning nausea and pain in her nerves, the twitching and increasingly sharp pang of biotics seeking release. That was the one thing she had to control-- no flares. She’d burn up to a cinder before she let her biotics flare again.

He kept talking but her attention faded in and out. Had Nihlus been there? She could swear he was talking to her, telling her to hold on just a moment longer. He was smiling, and when he turned around the back of his head and his fringe were missing. There were other sensations too, of being lifted, and of a calm flanged voice talking nothings to her all the while, of cool, blunt talons on her burning face, wiping away blood, and then more pricks of needles and then her nerves sighed in relief as she was sunk into a deep, frozen pool of sleep.

~~~

“---just in time. Nerve damage negligible. Should be waking up soon-- ah.”

Shepard was out flat on an exam table. Her mind burned and her tongue ached, but she moaned and tried to sit up. She failed, but tried again. There was a rustle and a slight creak, and someone in armor was holding her gently, but firmly to the table. She smelled gun oil and ozone and all manner of spice, and pine sap. Smelled like a gunfight in a rainforest.

Her memory started coming back, and she squinted to focus on Vakarian’s face, hovering uncertainly above her.

“Hi…?” She choked on the word a little, forcing it out through a swollen tongue.

“Welcome back,” his mandibles twitched in a tight smile.

“How long?” She managed to make the words intelligible, though choking.

“It’s been about five hours. How are you feeling?”

“Uhhh…” He was still here after five hours?

“No, don’t answer that. You look like shit.”

That made her laugh, which made her groan. Her head was weighed down with rocks, sunk to the bottom of a murky pool of water. “Thanks. Insides match the outsides then.”

“Do not attempt movement.” That was the doctor, addressing her this time. The reedy, rapid fire voice continued. “You were overdosed on red sand, and experienced a high fever and convulsions. You have slept off most of the effects, but vigorous movement or biotic use is not advised for the next 48 hours. After 48 hours, some activity recommended. Monitor vitals closely.”

“So getting massively dosed with red sand wasn’t just a really bad dream?”

“Not a dream. Very dangerous.” Doctor Mordin Solus. That was his name-- he worked with Butler. He stalked forward and began to examine her, speaking quickly as his hands and tools took her vitals, peering into pupils and checking her mouth and her capillaries. “Very lucky. Archangel brought you just in time. Nerve damage imminent without proper sedation.”

Oh. _Thanks, big guy._ She favored Vakarian with a tired smile before looking around. The low reddish lights and particular shape of the buildings outside the windows looked familiar-- the clinic they’d brought the red sand slaves to just yesterday. She reached out and grabbed his arm, pulling. “Help me sit up.”

Vakarian did so, gripping around the back of her shoulders. Shepard slowly swung her legs over the edge of the bed and rested there. She wore a robe, her armor piled nearby. She could see it was clean-- cleaner than it had been in weeks, and she could see her right hand gauntlet was free of batarian gore. Vakarian must have cleaned it to keep busy while she slept off the overdose. She didn’t comment on it.

“Starving,” she managed to say when her head stopped spinning. Her stomach was trying to eat itself, threatening dry heaves.

“I’ve got it covered, Shepard. Doctor Solus said you’d be hungry.”

“I’m always fucking hungry.” She was presented with a carton of noodles and some spice tea-- they were from the Tuhi noodle stand she’d brought him to a few days ago-- straight from Lem, it looked like. It felt like a month had past in a span of day, things were moving so quickly. She grinned. “Thanks. Best hospital trip ever,” she managed around a mouthful, tucking in with a will… half way through the noodles, she stopped, remembering. Oh, that was not a great thing to remember while eating-- not gross enough to make her stop, because damn, she was hungry, but she’d acknowledge it. No reason to pretend she didn’t remember.

“Sorry I threw up on you,” she said. She wondered if she’d been babbling as well. She couldn’t remember, though she had vague memories of feeling like Nihlus was there. If she’d said anything weird, he didn’t behave like it.

“Small price to pay for you not dying on me. Interesting reflex. Turians can vomit voluntarily, you know.”

“You can barf on command?”

“Yep.” He looked pleased with himself, like it was a great trick. Damn it, Vakarian, stop trying to be funny.

“Gross.” She shrugged and got back to the noodles. “What happened to the slaves?” There was something hazy there about…

“Butler took care of them. No one got as much of a dose as you did, thankfully, or we’d probably have a lot more ODs. That biotic thing you did dispersed most of the drug dust before they got to it. Some are here for medical attention. Butler found the rest of them safe places to go, to ride out withdrawal, and we’re going to use the money to arrange for transport off of Omega once they’re clean, along with the ones we found yesterday. Some of them want to stay and help other addicts get away. That drell who’d been in the hangar… her name is Melenis. She wants to lead the effort.”

“Seriously?” She looked at him, slightly stunned. That was amazing. With Kerk gone, one of the addict-to-slave pipelines was broken. Someone else would replace Kerk, of course, but they bought some time and could put their own structures in place before that happened.

“Yeah. We can fund it with the money we got from the op. There was… a lot of money.” He was down on one knee so he could look into her eyes without her needing to strain upwards. “Shep, it worked. We got people to help us, and there’s money, and movement. Everyone lived. Things are happening. Butler said he wants to keep working with us, and he’s got friends who can join us too. But listen Shepard. What you did…. that was fucking insane. You could have died. Would have died, if that had been an explosive.”

“I had a plan. Worked out fine in the end. Glad you were there, though.” She’d had the situation under control-- it would have worked if the damn thing had actually been an explosive and not a chemical weapon.

He looked angry-- was he mad that she’d disobeyed his order to hold? He didn’t seem like it…. this was about her life, not about command. “Next time, slow down. I’ve got your six.” Had her six? What an utterly human expression, based on human military 24 hour time, and sounded incongruous coming from him. Based on a human clock. He sounded sort of sad when he’d said it. Vakarian was… so weird. But she was oddly touched. “We could have handled it.”

She was slightly stunned, barking out a laugh. “My six? Spend some time working with the Alliance, huh?” His eyes widened, but she pressed on. Histories were histories. “Look, I’m not used to working with a team,” she said, not sure what else to say.

“Well,” he said, sitting back on his haunches. “Get used to it. I want you.”

“Oh?” One eyebrow shot up.

He coughed, but barreled on. “I mean, I want you on my team. Worth with me. Not for me, with me.” He was still staring intently, pinprick blue eyes fever bright with possibilities and hope. He was so earnest it almost killed her all over again, but Shepard broke his gaze to stare down at her right hand-- the hand that she’d recently punched into someone’s brain. It was clean now, free of her gauntlets and the pink, frothy gore of it, but she would never forget the sensation of flesh and bone parting as if it were butter.

Vakarian inhaled sharply, his eyes following hers to her hand. “Shit-- I--” he said. That voice put so much rich emotion into those two, short, disconnected words, but he couldn’t possibly understand.

“I just put my hand through someone’s skull with my biotics. Thanks for the job, but I’m gonna need a little time to process before I can give you an answer.” She was going to say yes, of course. Let him squirm, though.

“Of course, Shepard. I’ll be here if you need me.” She patted his arm, conspicuously absent of vomit, and imagined him cleaning it off while she slept. Imagined him removing her gauntlets, one covered in Batarian brains, and cleaning those off, too. It made her uncomfortable-- the process intimate. She’d wanted to clean off those brains herself. It was her duty, her right to clean up the gore she’d made, but he’d spared her that. She was… grateful.

Her strength returned slowly after she ate, drank water, and rested a bit more. Mordin checked out her vitals and reflexes and declared that while she should take it easy for a few days, there was no lasting damage, and withdrawal wouldn’t be bad because she was a first (and last) time user. Once the salarian doctor gave her the all clear, she wanted to go home, but her shuttle was still being used to run the slaves to safety.

“I gave Butler the codes. Skycar was faster, and they could fit more in the shuttle,” he muttered, embarrassed that she’d trusted him with her shuttle and now it wasn’t even in his possession. Shepard shrugged-- she didn’t like being stranded, but it had been the right call. She’d live without her transport for a few more hours. She couldn’t drive right now anyway.

“Keep using the shuttle, I’ll ping you when I need to pick it up. Can you take me to Afterlife? I can get home from their easy enough.”

“Of course.”

As promised, Vakarian gave her space, letting the ride linger in silence. She let him drive (“Just this once,” she insisted) because her hands were shaking and her reflexes were shot. On the way, they were both silent. It was one thing to be injured in battle-- that she was familiar with…the scars on her body could attest to her history with injury, but drugged to the point of overdose? That had opened up her mind in ways she really didn’t want to think about.

Apparently something was bothering Vakarian as well. “Did you know?” He asked.  
“Know what?”

“That the grenade was going to disperse red sand. Or did you think it was an explosive?”

“Uh…” she’d rather not answer that question. She wasn’t sure which was worse. “I didn’t know. I thought it was a bomb.” He opened his mouth, but she barreled over whatever he was going to say. “You’d have done the same damn thing. Don’t tell me you wouldn’t. ”

“You’re crazy, Shepard,” he said at last. It wasn’t a denial. She thought he sounded… revrent down in his sub vocals, though his mandibles were tight and his shoulders pinched.

He didn’t ask where home was, but delivered her to the door of Afterlife before taking off, presumably to go meet with Butler. What she really wanted was a ride to her hanger so she could fall into real, unmedicated sleep, but she didn’t make a habit of letting near-strangers know where she lived-- even near strangers who had let her puke on their arm and saved her life. As for work? She’d ping Vakarian when she was ready. She knew she’d be ready, she just needed some… time. Twenty-four hours. Maybe forty-eight, depending on how much she slept.

The sensation of liquefying someone's brains with her biotics made her shudder as she shuffled through the club like a ghost, counterpoint to the music that oozed sex and intrigue.

“Aria wants to see you.” A guard in his sleek black armor was barring her way, pointing her to Aria’s dias. Shepard froze. Fuck. This was the last thing she wanted to deal with right now. She should have had Vakarian take her straight home.

She climbed the stairs. Thirteen steps.

“Busy night for you, Shepard. Kerk used to be one of mine. I’d wondered what he got up to.”

Aria was sitting, impassive as always. Shepard's head was stuffed full of sodden cotton balls that were both moldy and somehow on fire. She had no time for Aria or games.

“You know me, always looking to make myself of service,” she said around her bruised and raw tongue.

“You look like hell.” Aria was looking her over with a critical eye, and Shepard let the gaze roll off her as she had so many times before.

“Well, I am in Afterlife after all.” She gestured around her. “What do you want, Aria?” She didn’t bother keeping the thin, tight undercurrent annoyance from her abused voice.

“I want to know I’m watching you. You need to be careful about who you’re associating with right now. I like Mordin… you never know if he’s going to heal you, or shoot you. But word is there’s is a new player in town. I’ll tolerate him for the moment, but….” Her brows drew down in consternation, throwing that spine chilling vehemence into her next words, “The moment he starts fucking with Aria, Archangel is going down.” She smiled. “And if you get in my way, you go down too. Remember where your loyalties lie, Shepard.”

She remembered. Her loyalties had died with Nihlus and lay with his ashes, drifting out to mingle with the vacuum of space and dance with stardust.

“There were slaves, Aria. You know that’s where my loyalties lie.”

“Just keep it to slaves and mercs, and keep Archange out of my way. Got it?”

“Sure, Aria.” Her head was back, staring into the neon darkness in meditation, breathing through the little fire of rage that burned in the pit of her stomach. She creaked shakily off the couch and headed down to find her ride home.

An overdose might not kill her, but the hangover was going to.

“Hey pop,” she said, hugging herself as the door to Patriarch's private room slid open.

“Nym! Come in! I was just telling these peons about my glory days. Never charge a charging krogan, ha!” He slammed his fists together. She shuffled in and found a spot on the couch to sink into, eyes closing as she allowed her head to tilt back and rest against the wall. Nothing ever changed around here.

Patriarch paused in his theatrics and studied her. “You look like something a varen would want to roll in.”

“Everyone keeps saying I look like shit. A few more people, and I’ll start believing it.”

“Good fight?”

Shepard found herself grinning despite herself. It had been a good fight. No collateral damage. Lots of impressive moves from the whole team. Sidonis was a capable shot, and good at following orders. Butler was invaluable as a medic. They had a drell who wanted to run an underground escape run for ex slaves. Vakarian was brilliant. And they’d won more than just the firefight. No more red sand addicts would get shipped off of Omega. Not through Kerk’s operation anyway, because Kerk had a fist sized hole through his head.

“Yeah,” she sighed. “One of the better ones. Could have done without getting dosed by red sand at the end, though.”

“Ah, all in a day’s work. Allright Pyjak, I’ll take you home.”

“Thanks pop,” she sighed, smiling. She was too tired to mind the nick-name or being coddled by the old krogan, and just wanted to go somewhere quiet and safe, and be alone. Patriarch would get her there.


	7. Lonesome Heroes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Couple things:  
> -Mixing up the genders of the Archangel team because come ooonnnnnn Bioware.  
> -Weaver is non-binary. Ze uses non-binary pronouns (ze/hir).  
> -Garrus is way more obsessed with Shepard then he has any right to be at this point in the story, but he just won't stop and I don't know how to make him. So, that's that.  
> -There is some wee fluff in this chapter. Yay?  
> -Long chapter and sorry for weird typos. I'll fix them as I find them.

_Put out your cigarette, my love,_  
_you've been alone too long;_  
_and some of us are very hungry now_  
_to hear what it is you've done that was so wrong._

-"A Bunch of Lonesome Heroes," Leonard Cohen

 

**Garrus**

The first official Archangel team briefing was held in Garrus’s tiny motel room. Seven people from four different species crowded into the small space, finding various places to perch or lean, or sprawl, as each individual was wont to do based on their needs and natures.

Butler stood by the door with Sidonis. The two had bonded over the past two missions, and Garrus was glad to see that they complemented each other quite nicely-- they pulled off the “good cop/bad cop” routine, respectively, and Garrus knew that they would be his lieutenants. Sidonis was mistrustful of new people, while Butler was open minded and egalitarian. Garrus needed both their perspectives if they were going to be recruiting people.

Grundan Krul was also present, over by the window where he’d sat the day before, smoking one of those cigarettes. He was engrossed in his omnitool and had three portable consoles arrayed around him on the floor, ignoring everyone else around him. When he’d come in he’d done a scan of the room, scowling, and Garrus thought he might be looking for Shepard, who was conspicuously absent.

Perched on a chair on the other side of the room, squarely in a corner and away from any windows, where she could watch the door, sat the drell woman whom they had rescued from the slavers-- Melians was her name. Butler had gained the most contact with her, and had said she was invaluable to helping work with the slaves. She could talk to them, make them feel safe, and was willing to coordinate their recovery and escape plans. She’d been some kind of prisoner to the slave buyers they had slaughtered, and she had taken her chances on escape into Omega’s underground. She was a curious deep teal color that Garrus kept looking at to make sure it was real. Her neck and jaw frills were a deep reddish-orange, with pitch black striped patterning her brow. She had huge black eyes and a distant smile which obscured what Garrus thought might be a deep sense of pain. She was unfailingly polite and unafraid of her new life or the choices that Butler had presented to her. Garrus had been surprised when she had offered to help with Archangel instead of looking for transport off of Omega. Perhaps she had nowhere else to go.

She could also fight-- hand-to-hand and CQC were her specialties. Odd qualities in a slave. Melians was always watching and always detached from anything but the most mild emotions, and Garrus wondered if she was hanar trained-- he’d heard nasty things about Drell assassins, and one of the slave buyers had been hanar.

Whatever her story, it was hers to keep or share as she would, but Garrus certainly didn’t doubt her commitment to working with him. 

The last two, Garrus did not know. They were Butler’s contacts, a human and a turian. Apparently the human sometimes worked security at the Gozu Clinic and was a friend of the Doctor's. The turian was... impressive.

“This is Sensat, and Weaver,” Butler said, when they entered and settled themselves into the room, taking a spot on the bed next to each other. As the duo passed, Garrus caught a mixture of their mingled scents, the low musk of Sensat's pheromones mixed with another smell, one of…. Human. Human…. sex. They were _lovers_. Turian-human pairings were rare, and most of the porn Garrus had seen were male turian-female human pairings. Sensat was female, and Weaver was…. well, Garrus couldn't tell hir gender, and gave up trying after a brief moment of puzzlement. He’d learned while working in the Alliance that humans, much like turians, had a wide variety of genders that went beyond “male” and “female,” and this Weaver was wholly ambiguous-- ze had a mixture of secondary sex characteristics that led Garrus to the conclusion that he shouldn’t worry about it. 

So they were lovers huh? He glanced over to the other turian in the room and noticed that Sidonis was staring, hooded eyes hot and… angry? He’d have to talk to Sidonis about that after the meeting. He didn’t want trouble, though he knew turian-human pairings were a contentious issues among conservative turians. Garrus almost laughed at the thought. Pretty much every turian he’d _ever_ met was conservative, himself being the outlier. This Sensat would be a fascinating study. 

Garrus leaned against the wall next to Krul, studying the diverse group of people assembled. Krul studiously did not look at anyone, smoking and typing away, but Garrus got the sense he was listening. Butler resumed his place at the door with Sidonis, who was trying not to stare at Sensat. Garrus didn’t blame him. The turian woman was a tough looking woman with sharp yellow eyes and stormy gray plates a bit darker than his, her hide brown, slashes of orange tattoos on her brow and across her nose and mandibles. By all counts she was intimidating _._ Weaver's blocky, thick build and easy posture was a relaxed counterpoint to Sensat's thin, tense one. Weaver had warm black skin and oddly stringy, think hair, as if each strand was a little tube of the fine fibres. Melians watched each of them in turn, while appearing not to watch any of them at all.

Something was missing. Or rather, _some one._ Garrus resisted checking his omnitool to see if he’d received a message from Shepard since he’d last checked five minutes ago. He’d sent her a brief message about the meeting and received no reply-- it had been about thirty hours since he’d brought her to Afterlife and he thought perhaps she was still sleeping off the hangover. Must be a hell of a hangover. He shoved down the tight knot of guilt that had settled in his stomach since yesterday’s disaster, and turned to his new squad.

“I’m Archangel. You might hear some people call me Vakarian, but on the job it’s strictly Archangel.”

“Or you can call him Arch,” Butler put in with a grin. Garrus gave a wry but good natured huff-- why did everyone insist on shortening his names? A small part of him missed being called Garrus-- the simplicity of it. Vakarian was a name shared by hundreds of thousands of turians. Garrus was his true name, his essence, what he’d been called by his family, by the crew of the Normandy, by his friends. He wished that he could use that name again, but that identity had died when he’d disappeared. He was Archangel now. Nothing more. Sometimes less. Sometimes…. Arch.

“Sensat, Weaver. Why don’t you tell us a little bit about yourselves, and what you can bring to the team.”

Weaver perked up, bumping hir arm into Sensat’s affectionately, thought Sensat kept her face carefully neutral-- Garrus caught the tiny, happy twitch of her mandibles. “I’m an ex security consultant, private sector. Biotic, with a bit of tech know-how. I’m generally very useful and an all-around good person. Very fun to work with, I’ve been told.” Ze grinned widely, before going back to fussing with the holographic display on hir hand.

Sensat looked bored. “I was in the Blue Suns. Ratted on on Tarak-- that’s their leader, for selling sabotaged guns to a group of colonists. First shipment of guns blew some colonists sky high. Second shipment to some other clueless colonists would have done the same.” She finally smiled, but it held no joy or humor. “Couldn't let it happen again. Ruined the deal. Tarak tried to kill me, and now I want revenge. Weaver and I have been working on reconnaissance and Blue Suns’ product sabotage. We hear you have resources.”

“We do,” Garrus replied. “We’ve got some credits coming in, and will have more. We also get things done. I want you to know this isn’t a merc group. We are not out to make money, though credits might be a byproduct of our missions. Anything I earn gets invested directly back into Archangel-- to be used by all of us.” Garrus’s mandibles were tight to his mouth, and he sat up straighter, pushing off the wall. Sensat’s hard yellow eyes followed him, speaking of mistrust, and he got the sense that she was the one that needed convincing, and that Weaver would follow whatever hir lover decided. That was fine. Garrus could be very persuasive. “What do you need us to do for you?”

“I want Tarak.” Weaver made an mmmmm of agreement, nodding.

“We can get Tarak. Why not? Omega is… our oyster. ” Garrus was cool and confident in the face of the woman’s skepticism, and Weaver looked up in surprise, hir omnitool vanishing.

“Human idioms from a turian?” Weaver said, giving Garrus an amused little eyebrow raise. “The wonders of the galaxy never cease.”

Garrus ignored hir. “We can get Tarak, but it’s not going to happen right away. You help me out, I’ll help you out. Tarak goes on the list of projects.”

“Alrighty, boss.” Weaver was nodding happily.

“Sure,” Sensat grunted. “What did you have in mind?”

“Butler mentioned you have some experience with sabotage and smuggling,” he inclined his head to the human near him. “The Blue Suns have been moving a lot of guns lately. Big ones. Krul, send the Suns’ shipment information to Weaver and Sensat.” The batarian grunted and hit a few buttons. “We’re going merc hunting.” Vakarian wanted to work directly with the duo, see what they could do and how they behaved under fire.

Then he turned towards the drell. “Melanis, are you fit for action?”

“I am, Archangel.” She inclined her head graciously.

“You can work with Butler and Sidonis today, get the rest of the slaves…” he paused. They weren’t slaves anymore. “The ex-slaves… the people we’re helping…. Get them to their safe houses. Use Shepard’s shuttle.”

“Heard from Shepard, yet?” Krul piped up after a moment, unexpected. Everyone turned to him and the silence loomed awkwardly. Butler coughed, doing a bad job at hiding a smile behind his hand.

“What?” Krul asked, affronted. “What? I’m only here because of Shepard.” He said it gruffly and started mumbling. Something about “she’s okay” and “only checking,” and Garrus suppressed his own twitch of a grin.

“Who’s Shepard?” Weaver asked, hir head tilting to the side as ze studied Krul.

“An ally,” Garrus said. She wasn’t on their team just yet… the hesitance she’d shown upon waking up in the clinic… upon him _bombarding_ her with news and a job offer and…. He wanted her on his team so very badly. Another pang of guilt lanced through him and he buried it. No time to brood about mistakes or should-haves right now. She wasn't dead, and that was all he could get right now. “Human biotic.”

“Crazy lady. Crazy as Arch, here,” Butler chimed in, grinning. “Does battle like a rabid varren.”

“We had an incident yesterday and Shepard was injured. She’s recovering, and it’s my hope that she will be joining the team when she’s feeling better.”

“She saved me,” Melenis said, softly, her speech like the gentle, clarifying patter of rain on dry stone. “She shot my captor as he was trying to drag me away again. She bought me the moment I needed to kill the man who hurt me, and escape. Now I am here. I hope she recovers soon.”

“The Professor said she’d be fine. But… I want to make it clear. Shepard was very nearly killed yesterday. She fights risky. That’s her style.” He paused, thinking about what he was trying to say. He should have been angry at Shepard for taking such a huge risk with strategy, but he wasn’t her commander, wasn’t her boss. These people were not his-- thought he’d do his damndest to care for them as if they were. “Whatever style you have is yours. I’m not here to train you, or change you. That means that you _own your decisions._ These decisions are yours alone, and they could get you killed. They could get others killed. Make your decisions wisely.” Each of them was looking at him with different expressions-- some like Melenis and Sensat were unreadable, but Weaver was bobbing hir head in agreement. Even Krul was actually looking at him and not his terminal.

“Anything else?”

“Uh… yeah.” That was Butler. He was looking around, silently counting the number of people in the tiny, dingy room. “Nice as it is for you to host us, I think we’re gonna need a bigger base.”

Garrus looked around at the cramped room, and silently agreed. “Anyone know something about acquiring property on Omega?”

“Yeah,” Krul said harshly. “You steal it.”

“And… can you do that?” Garrus asked, skeptical.

“Give me a few days.”

“You’re the best, Krul.”

“I know. I don’t need your compliments, sunshine.” he growled.

“Just stating the obvious. Let's move.”

Krul didn’t answer, just aggressively pushed some buttons on his terminal and grumbled, and the two teams filed out of the tiny motel room.

They were definitely going to need a bigger base.

 

~~~

 

**Chat Transcript**

S 0700: Sorry I missed your message. I just slept for 18 hours.

V 0958: Impressive. Isn’t a normal human sleep cycle something like 8?

S 1001: Something like that. I feel woke from the dead. How’s the gang?

V 1003: Good. New people to work with. Blew some stuff up. Stole some guns.

S 1005: Now I’m really sorry I missed it. I love explosions. And guns.

V 1006: You have enough guns. But… we can always blow more stuff up.

S 1006: When?

V 1007: Is that a yes to my offer?

S 1007: I don’t recall you making an offer. More like demands.

V 1008: Is that a yes to my demands?

S 1010: Yes.

V 1011: Good answer. Krul is working on getting us a base of operations.

S 1011: Glad to see you two have bonded, Sunshine.

V 1013: I can’t help it. I’m a people person.

V 1013: How are you feeling?

S 1014: Better. I hurt everywhere though. All my joints feel broken. And I’m craving pickles and want to punch things. In other words, fit for duty. When do you need me?

 

~~~

 

**Garrus**

Garrus was trying not grin when he’d got the messages. She’d said yes, just like that. No questions, no cajoling or promises, just…. Yes. He typed a reply. Good answer, he said. It was the best answer.

Then she called him sunshine, and that actually made him laugh.

“Talking to your girlfriend?” Garrus jumped just slightly, brought back to reality. Weaver was smirking as ze crouched in cover, poking at hir omnitool.

“What? No! It’s Shepard. She’s joining the team.”

“Goody,” said Weaver. “I’m looking forward to meeting her.” Weaver leered, waggling an eyebrow.

“Heads up!” That was Sensat, running like hell and vaulting into cover beside her partner. Something rocked their location-- and then a hot rush of air blasted them, followed by the boom of an explosion.

In that instant he forgot their messages, and yanked Weaver further into cover. “What did you do?” He groaned at Sensat. “This was supposed to be recon!”

“Guns needed to get blown up.”

“And now we have to shoot things,” he grumbled.

“I don’t see why you’re complaining,” she snapped. “Isn’t that supposed to be what you’re good at?”

Fair enough. Garrus sighted down his rifle and lined up a shot. Breathe. Pull trigger. Move to the next blue helmet. Breath. Pull trigger. Up went the adrenaline and a thought lingered in his mind as Weaver lept hir cover and detonated hir tech armor, blowing back a trio of Blue Suns, and Sensat snarled, spraying automatic fire into the downed mercs.

Breathe, aim, trigger. But.. What the hell was a pickle?

 

~~~

 

**Shepard**

It had been a half an hour with no response from Vakarian, and Shepard was pacing her hangar. Her head was pounding, still feeling strung out from the red sand withdrawal. She took a few tablets to help with the headache and drank some water, before giving up and going to lie back in bed. She wasn’t supposed to use her biotics again for another day, but her nerves were hungry and singing for the rush of dark energy.

She hoped Vakarian was okay-- he’d abruptly dropped off the conversation when she’d said she was going to join him, and it didn’t _seem_ like he was in trouble, or that he was… disappointed. She was being silly, wanting to keep the conversation going, but she was bored and frustrated with her body and its barriers to her wellness and functionality. She was cagey and talking to Vakarian amused her. He’d seemed to expect her answer and take it in stride, but she got the feeling he was proud that she’d had such a short turnaround time between telling him to back off and give her space, and yo-yoing back into working for him.

Really he should be mad at her for being the reckless biotic freak she was, charging in to throw herself on a damn grenade, but there he was, just an extranet message away, cracking jokes and demanding that she be a part of his work.

Working with him. He’d said…partners.

She sighed into the pillow, groaning. She was hooked-- it was like working with Nihlus all over again. The rush of adrenaline, the constant action, the results. Addicting. The parallels were undeniable. Capable turians and their damn heroic _suicidal_ agendas.

She closed her eyes and sighed into the pillow. Her head was aching.

Vakarian had mentioned guns and explosions. He better not be dead from guns or explosions. She sent him a message saying exactly that, and closed her eyes.

Before she could consciously decide to take another nap, sleep claimed her.

 

~~~

 

**Chat Transcript**

S 1131: You better not be dead from guns or expositions, Vakarian.

V 1301: Sorry, hit a… snag with the recon. There were more explosions. Back now. Glad you’re feeling better.

S 1315: I fell asleep again.

V 1316: More sleep? Sure you’re feeling fit for duty?

S 1317: I’m fine. Worst hangover ever. I keep sleeping because my body wishes it was dead.

V 1319 What’s a pickle?

S 1319: Ha! Earth food. A vegetable preserved in an edible acid and salt. I don’t think you can get them on Omega.

V 1319: So it is true. Humans really do use food as a form of torture.

S 1320: Humans are notorious sensation junkies.

S 1324: Have anything fun for me? I’m bored.

V 1325: Knee deep in Blue Suns corpses courtesy of Sensat-- so nothing unless you want to help with cleanup.

S 1325: I’ll pass, Sunshine.

V 1326: Oh no, the name stuck.

S 1331: About as intimidating as Archangel, really.

V 1337: My enemies tremble in terror when they hear it.

S 1339: When was the last time you slept?

V 1345: About… 24 hours ago?

S 1345: Get some sleep Vakarian, your delirious.

V 1345: We have an opp planned for tomorrow. You can meet Sensat and Weaver.

S 1346: Sounds good. Send me the coords and the details.

S 1347: And sleep well.

 

~~~

 

**Garrus**

It was mid-afternoon, but like he’d recently discovered, time on Omega didn’t really mean much. He was exhausted, and after the intel-turned-blowing-up mercs operation and hearing from Shepard, he needed to be alone. Rest. Time to think. Four hours sleep.

Sensat was going to be a pain in his ass-- she was reckless and rude, but her dive was second only to his. She took charge of Blue Suns intel, and Garrus gave her all the room she needed to maneuver.

He made his way back to the motel room after clean up and going over tomorrow's mission with Weaver and Sensat. Shepard would be joining them. The door hissed shut behind him, and he leaned against it with a heavy sigh, looking around. Outside the window, Omega’s skyline loomed orange and hazy. He could just see the edge of the asteroid the station had been built into, with spires and downward towers bit deep into the rock. He went over and opened the window, inviting in noise and smog to mingle with Krul's cigarette stench. The tiny, shabby room now felt hollow and empty compared to what it had been earlier that day. It smelled like cigarettes, sure, but other than that there was no sign that anyone had been in here-- Spirits, he’d hardly been here. Where was the last time he’d slept? It had been over 24 hours, certainty, and Garrus realized that he hadn’t paused or taken a moment since… since before Shepard had overdosed.

He stripped and got into the shower, and he finally let the knot of anxiety he’d been feeling since the slaver raid bubble up so he could deal with it.

Recent memories chased themselves around inside his brain. He’d watched, horrified, too far to help but too close to miss any detail, as Shepard charged in a crack of biotics, and threw herself on the damn grenade. To everyone’s surprise, she didn’t get blown to bits-- but she did almost die anyway.

He scrubbed under a plate, groaning as he freed some grime that had accumulated there. Omega was dirty work. He frowned, trying to figure out how he felt about Shepard’s decision. She hadn’t known what kind of grenade it was, and acting without information like that should have been a critical error, but it wasn’t. He should have been angry at her for putting her life at risk like that, but he wasn’t. Instead he was in awe. It wasn’t a stupid move full of bravado as Sidonis had said when they had briefly discussed the incident, venom in his voice, but rather a calculated risk. She’d had a contingency plan, using her biotics to contain the blast, had about a 30% chance of being successful, and had decided that the lives of those slaves were worth the other 70% that she might fail. She put the mission first. The mission was to take out Kerk, with a primary objective of saving slaves. She was expendable in that mission. So was he. They all were.

Another thought bloomed: It should have been him who took that face-full of explosive red sand. Commander Fisher showed him that it was always the leader who went down with the ship. It should have been him throwing himself on the damn bomb. Besides, Turians were incredibly resistant to red sand. It would have been a hell of a lot easier to deal with for him.

Garrus had let his tactical nature get the better of him. He might be hot headed about his actions, but in combat he was always the tactician, and on Omega that wasn’t going to work. Lead from the front, Vakarian. Fight alongside your team, or hold them back with you, but don’t split up.

The skycar ride had been a frantic hell of adrenaline, nonsense babbling, and vomit from her, but five hours in the clinic, watching her sleep like she was dead was worse. He’d left briefly to get food for when she’d wake up-- the salarian doctor had assured him she’d wake-- but every other moment was spent on the comm with Butler and Sidonis, coordinating while simultaneously keeping watch over Shepard, to be there when she woke. He’d… needed to be there, to show her that her choices were her own, but that he… what? What had he wanted to say to her? He supported her. Respected her. Thought she was crazy. He’d taken the liberty of cleaning her armor of gore after he’d scrubbed the vomit from his own arm-- it was the least he could do, and from the looks of it she hadn’t been taking meticulous care. For someone who’d been so adamant that he not try and get himself killed, she certainly had a casual attitude towards her own safety, abet in more subtle ways.

But the thing that really bothered him-- that made the anxious knot in his gut clench and tangle further was that she’d been the hammer to the anvil of his plan, and it had nearly got her killed. The worst part was that he couldn't say she’d never be in danger like that again, that he’d never put her in a compromising position, because she was so damn competent. Deadly. He needed her, but he wanted to… what? Protect her? The thought made him laugh. Shepard knew Omega better than he did, by leagues. She knew this place’s secrets. He didn’t want to protect her. He wanted to spare her his doom. He knew what he was doing was extended suicide, and he wanted to spare her his fate. But he _needed_ her. Two missions and she was already indispensable. Hence the guilt, and the lack of sleep, and the… oh Spirits, was he _brooding?_ Over a woman? Yes. He was

Once she’d woke in the clinic, she was hot and gray around the edges, eyes sunken and haunted, but she wouldn’t let him take care of her, not any more than he’d already done by driving her and feeding her, and showing her that he’d be there if she needed him. She didn’t need him, though. He could respect that, even if every turian instinct in him said to stand guard and caretake while his comrade healed. Instead he’d dropped her off at Afterlife and left. He suspected that she had people there who would see to her recovery.

He’d seen people OD on red sand before, and it was not pretty. Watching her throw herself on a grenade, which overdosed her on red sand, talking her through the hell of it and out the other side, that was a nightmare. Her skin was paper thin, blistering and fever-hot but colorless-- somehow both clammy and burning, eyes rolling and unfocused, biotics flaring and dying unpredictably. He wasn’t afraid of Shepard’s biotics in that moment, though Butler had warned him of the dangers. If he’d been afraid or hesitated she would have died.

She’d been so light in his arms, weighing no more than a child, and her drug fueled grip on his armor, fingers curled around his cowl, had been childlike as well, as if her tether to the physical world had been almost severed and that grip on his chestplate was only anchor she’d had. She was hanging on by the thread formed by the anticonvulsant meds Butler had administered-- thank the Spirits for that man’s medic experience-- and her own will.

And she’d been talking in her delirium-- about two turians that Garrus knew by name. One, he’d hunted across the galaxy and had helped execute at the heart of the Citadel. The other had been famous, and the War of Eden Prime’s first turian casualty.

He’d been… stunned.

Hearing her name Saren and Nihlus created two possibilities in his mind: Shepard was more than she seemed, or he was going crazy and seeing connections where there were none. Maybe he wanted those connections to her, wanted her to be more. She was a titan-- and he wanted more reason to be drawn to her than he already was. Either way, she’d babbled and he’d heard things that should have been secret. He’d have to think on what to do about it. Tell her she’d spoken two names that had haunted his life for the past year, or sit on it? Right now he’d sit on it. She’d only just said yes to joining Archangel after all.

He huffed a laugh at her last message-- Sunshine. She’d taken Krul’s joke and run with it… and he was totally okay with it. He was okay with big guy, too.

He smiled, gazing at the last message. _She with the many nicknames._ Turians didn't really do nicknames, he didn't really get them, but if he couldn’t be Garrus anymore, he might as well be…. Something.

In the meantime, plans for Archangel were set in motion. He had a team, and it was growing. His top priority was getting them into fighting shape, and making sure that nothing like what had happened to Shepard happened to anyone else. Not again. Not if he could help it.


	8. Echo & Abyss

_I choose the rooms that I live in with care,_   
_the windows are small and the walls almost bare,_   
_there's only one bed and there's only one prayer;_   
_I listen all night for your step on the stair._

-"You'll Be Fine," Leonard Cohen

 

**Garrus**

There were folk stories of night-stalking beasts on Palavan, ancient and primeval beings that were drawn to weak clans and fragmented communities to prey on those Spirits unprotected by unity and worship. They were called Naksea: sound of spirit death. The Naksea lived in tales told to turian children who would not obey their elders, in order to teach them about unity and duty, and the dangers of a weak clan. The Naksea were unknowable, never seen but could be heard. A turian with spiritual predilections could hear Spirits die, if trained to listen properly. The sound of the Naksea could be anything: sometimes it was like a predator’s hunting shriek in a silent forest when you were alone and your fire had just gone out. Sometimes it was the sound of a daughter’s cry, keening and hopeless when she learns her mother is not going to return from the wars. The silent sound of radiation, slowly burning through plate and hide when there is no shelter at midday. The sound of triumph when your enemy has a hold on your throat and you know it's a matter of seconds before the world snaps and is gone from you.

Naksea were the sounds of primacy, the essence of sundering and fracturing. Separation and difference. Garrus was not a spiritual man, and he was no longer linked into community and turian togetherness enough to know just what counted as a Spirit anymore. Naksea were nothing more than a folktale to contemporary turians like him…. And yet as he slept...

Garrus dreamed of sound and fire.

He was on the Citadel. The sound of of the horror above him was bone vibrating and Spirit shredding. A deep thrumm that tore through him and rearranged his insides it's very wrongness, the incompressibility staggering.

His very core vibrated as he looked up amid the falling embers and debris, chunks of the station raining down on him. Amid the bright pink fires and haze of lavender smoke, he saw the outline of the shape that was kilometers long, coming to embrace the center point of the citadel like a homecoming. The thing that made the bone shattering noise was was something no turian had ever seen, only heard, and Garrus knew that to be the noise of Naksea.

But the monster making the noise of the Naksea had another name. Reaper.

Garrus sat bolt upright in bed, talons at his ears, clutching his skull. His mind raced, pleading: No, not that sound. Not now, not here.

The low orange light of his room was a counterpoint to his dream of pastel fires and bright chrome. Here on Omega, he was safe from Naksea because…. because no spirits resided on Omega. There was nothing for Naksea to eat here. He’d run to somewhere forsaken, so he could be forgotten, and forget.

He settled back into the half-upright contours of the mattress that supported and protected his spurs and cowl, and his fringe-- he’d had to request a turian specific bed after realizing he’d got a flat one made for pretty much any other species besides Hanar. Only went to show how little he’d been sleeping since moving to this motel from his last one.

This is why he didn’t sleep. Spirits, he hated the dreams. He didn’t want to remember Fisher, or the Reapers, or the impending doom that he was ignoring in favor of actions that had more tangible results. A small, buried part of him that spoke in his Father’s voice told him he was being a child, disappearing to act out petty revenge fantasies that should have died when he’d donned the C-Sec badge at the earliest, and certainly should not have continued after the frantic hunt for Saren and the Specter’s subsequent demise.

_“Do things right, Garrus, or don’t do them at all.”_

_Okay dad,_ he sighed to the voice. _I’m doing the wrong thing now, so if I fuck it up at least I can say it wasn’t a mistake._

But what was the right thing to do, that he wasn’t doing?

He stared into the gloom, and allowed himself a moment of foul fantasy: He was ragged and wild eyed. He’d accosted diplomats and been stripped of his C-Sec office and the commendations he’d earned while serving on the Normandy. No longer friend and confidant to the late Savior of the Citadel, but iconoclast. Conspiracy nut. He wore a free speech permit around his neck like a badge of honor and was camped out on the Presidium, ranting to anyone who might listen. Commander Fisher was dead. The Alliance was covering up the nature and reason for his death. The Council was ignoring the real threat. The Reapers were coming, and they. Were. Not. Ready. But no one would listen to him.

Not that his father wouldn’t have been first in line to condemn Garrus for becoming a paranoid cryer of their impending doom: _You say the so called “Reapers” are coming? And now my son isn’t just a hotheaded aberrant, He’s officially insane._

The Reapers were coming. He didn’t care. The threat was too big, too abstract for him to grasp, even when he’d seen the damn thing, heard it’s Naksea noise. As far as the Council and the Citadel was concerned, the threat was contained, the Geth were the aggressors, Saren an anomaly, and Fisher was power-crazy and no longer their problem, but the Alliances. That’s why he’d been sent out on cleanup in the Traverse in the first place, to shut him up. Now that he was gone it seemed that no one was left to carry the Reaper torch. Garrus certainly couldn’t do it. Maybe Liara could carry that burden, come to think of it.... She’d been so committed. So invested.

She believed that it was worth the effort.

There was no getting back to sleep now. He really only needed four hours for maximum functionality, and two and a half was good enough for right now. But what to do?

Garrus shot off a message in the dark, his tired face lit by the orange glow of his omnitool. There were other ways to distract himself besides killing mercs.

~~~

**Shepard**

Life was so much better without a red sand hangover. Shepard had slept on and off again, trying to whittle down the time that stretched until she could hit the ground with Archangel and meet the new team, but napping was only so entertaining. Nor was she in the mood to bury herself in the depths of the undernet, chasing rumors of Collectors and Geth-- her mind was too fried and jumpy from her recent substance injestion to trust that she wouldn’t drive herself mad with paranoia and possibility. So that meant she just needed to let off a little steam, refocus herself. Steady as she goes, Shepard. Easy. She decided to take a perfectly innocent walk. Armed and armored of course-- one did not stroll about Omega without taking precautions. Suited up, with a pistol at her hip and her beloved shotgun at her back, she was ready. For anything.

It was going to be hard not to use her biotics.

She was out wandering, stopping at different food stalls and sampling this and that when she got the message from Vakarian.

V 1750: Still bored? I’ve slept all I can. Let's get a drink.

Shepard grinned. That was unexpected. She shot back a quick reply. That would be a good way to pass the time. She could pick his brain about the next mission and hear about the new recruits, Weaver and Sensat. Besides, it was probably a good idea to let him know she wasn’t seriously fucked up from the red sand before she got back to work-- she didn’t need him hovering. She told him to meet her at Afterlife in twenty minutes, sent him the password for the VIP entrance, and began the quick walk from Gozu. There were a number of other bars she could have suggested, but after nearly dying, Shepard wanted to be around noise and life, not shifting shadows and broken down old mercs with not enough credits and too many sad stories.

She used the lower entrance to the club, the bouncer waving her through when she gave him the password, slowly winding her way up to the main floor. The usual scum were present, as well as the social climbers and the hangers on, some mercs, some druggies, some gangers. The only difference between Afterlife and the rest of Omega was the dress code. Shepard moved among them unnoticed, just one more human looking for something to satisfy whatever longing called to her that evening-- drink, or sex, or power. Maybe all three. She liked the secret of it-- no one but the Patriarch, Aria, and a few in Aria’s inner circle knew Nym Shepard by sight-- no one stayed long enough on Omega to remember her. And those who tried to stay? They usually didn’t live. It was her secret that she nursed like slow poison: being in Afterlife was coming home.

She settled into the bar and listened to the news about the Citadel being rebuilt, about trade agreements between colonies, and she was bored. Vakarian wouldn’t be here for another fifteen minutes, so she began to let the conversations ebb and flow around her, listening.

“Bitch is mine…” flowed into, “I can’t believe I got in….” flowed into, “And then I told him where he could…”

Boring. And then her ears perked up.

“Collectors want his body…. working with… and.... is here?” She lost the train of conversation several times, but swung her head around to find the speakers, a drell man and a bright blue skinned asari. The fine hairs on the back of her neck prickled as pair approached and then squeezed by Shepard’s spot at the bar, continuing the thread of conversation she’d lost.

She heard Aria’s name from the Drell, and then--

“This doesn't look like the place for a human opera.” Shepard nearly choked on her drink when she laughed. That was the asari, sounding annoyed, her accent highbrow.

“Aria T’Loak is one of your kind, asari. If anything goes down on this station, she knows about it.” The second voice belonged to a drell, male and young, also annoyed sounding.

Shepard frowned and tracked the two speakers as the progressed towards Aria’s dias, bickering. They were a striking pair, young and dangerous looking, and not in the rough Omega sort of way-- these two looked like something out of the vids. They reminded her of Vakarian, all shiny, custom armor, sweeping jackets, and fever bright eyes. They were on a mission. Had some sort of agenda besides the usual on Omega, the usual being crime and violence.

“Queen of Omega, huh?” Their voices flowed back into the crowd and Shepard was on her feet and following before she knew it, when she saw a batarian grab for the asari. She caught another snippet of conversation, something about Consorts and being for sale and Shepard was shoving through the crowd, but she needed have bothered to rush-- a crack of biotics and a spray of blood later and the asari had laid out her assailant and the volus for good measure.

“I think I understand why they call it Afterlife,” the asari was saying, her eyes falling on Shepard, who was admittedly staring. “Can I help you?”

Woah. Freckles. She was… adorable. This girl had eyes the color of the Atlantic, blue and unfathomable and threatening violence and she was… so cute, Shepard could hardly contain her awwww. Cute, but scary, of course. She’d seen those biotics. Must not diminish the cute scariness of the adorable freckled asari.

Shepard smiled winningly, letting her own steely gaze meet and match the asari’s, ignoring the drell completely.

“I hear you want to talk to Aria,” Shepard said.

“Nosey one, aren’t you,” hissed the Drell, deep eyed and wary.

“Subtle one, aren’t you,” Shepard shot back. “You two will never get in to see the Queen if you don’t play her games. Tell me, how were you going to do it?”

The asari looked at the drell, and he shrugged. “I’m a friend… of Anto’s.”

Shepard chuckled. “Nice try. Anto doesn't have friends.” Inside her mind was screaming. Collectors. Aria would want to know, would need to make sure they weren't on the station. Oh, this was going to piss her right off. She wasn’t going to get involved other than to tip things in their favor, opening a few doors so she could get whatever intel they gave Aria, later. No need to get shot, or jump into something that was way over her head. But the child in Shepard could never pass up an opportunity to piss off Aria, and sending her young upstarts who would demand intel and disrespect her in the process was a pretty good way of doing it.

“Do you have any better ideas?” The drell grumbled.

“Yes, I do!” She said cheerfully, “Follow me, please.” She played the gracious host, leading the pair to Aria’s dias.

“Anto, my friends have an appointment with Aria. Don’t keep her waiting.” The batarian guard was slouching at his post, looking surly and bored as usual.

“She didn’t say anything about a meeting.”

“I just scheduled it.” She leaned in and smiled. Anto was not an idiot and he was part of Aria’s inner circle. He knew exactly who Shepard was, and would not deny her request. “She’ll want to hear this.”

The drell and the asari stood impatient behind her, and after a moment, Anto stepped aside. “Make it quick, or she’ll have my balls.”

“Oh Anto, she already has your balls.” She patted him on the shoulder in sympathy, gesturing for the drell and the asari to ascend the dias. The asari murmured thanks before Shepard retreated back to her spot at the bar, within easy sight of the stairs to Aria’s throne. A few minutes later, and the duo were hustling down the steps again, looking wild-eyed and triumphant. The asari girl stopped short and scanned the crowd. Shepard sat up straighter and waved slightly, a small smile on her lips. The asari nodded in reply, returning the smile before turning to the exit, the drell in her wake.

Shepard got up carefully and started to follow them-- until she realized she was still supposed to meet with Vakarian. Shit.

She saw him then, scanning the crowed for her, and her eyes darted between the exit that the drell and the asari had vanished through just moments ago, and the searhing turian. Shit, shit, shit.

Shepard sat back down and put on a casual face. If there was anything to know, she could get it from Aria. Let the young and beautiful people do what they did best. She’d get the intel eventually, even if she couldn’t spy on them.

She raised her hand once more, and Vakarian saw her, jutting his chin in acknowledgment. Damn, he was tall. The crowd automatically parted for him as he swam over a sea of heads and settled down with a now familiar creak and clank of armor.

“You don’t look half dead anymore,” he commented, studying her.

“No, I’m fully dead and I’ve found myself in the Afterlife.” She echoed the asari from earlier, cracking the oldest joke on Omega.

“Figures that I’m dead too, and I end up here. No Spirits to take pity on me here and take me somewhere nice.” Shepard wasn’t the most versed in Turian theology, but she was pretty sure that wasn’t how that all worked, precisely.

She shrugged. “Not a bad way to spend eternity.” She took a sip from her near empty drink, trying to keep her leg from jiggling. Now that he was here, she wished she hadn’t agreed to a social outing-- she wanted to follow the drell and asari, damn it!

“Sensat and Weaver are on their way,” he said. “They should be here in a bit.” She nodded absently, her eyes roving the bar for a way she could get out. “You’re a bit twitchy tonight, Shepard,” he said and her eyes locked back on him.

She grinned. “Red sand side effects,” she slurred. “I’m a tweaker now. I’m looking forward to meeting them,” she said after a moment. “Good folks?”

“They’re a bit… funny. But you’ll like them.” He paused, brow plates drawn down like he wanted to say something else, something off the topic of his squad, and Shepard’s attention snapped back to him.

“Something on your mind, Vakarian?”

He huffed a laugh, short and sharp. “Yeah, I guess you could say that. I want to bring it up so there aren’t… secrets between us. I’m a horrible liar, and don’t really deal well with guilt. So…”

Oh no. Confession time. Shepard was not up for this. Not what she’d been expecting. He was gonna spill his damn guts out about some horrible past and ask her to…

“You were talking during… the skycar ride. You were hallucinating.”

Oh. Not what she’d been expecting. She went cold and still, all thoughts of the drell and the asari were driven from her mind as she focused the razor of her attention on Vakarian. He shifted nervously.

“What did I say?” She asked, her speech slow and careful, hiding her fear. Just as long as she hadn’t babbled about Aria. She couldn’t have… she’d trained herself never to talk about Aria as more than a contact. She had control over that much at least, right? Right?

“You mentioned two turians. Nihlus, and Saren.”

“Oh,” she breathed. Well, it could have been worse. So much worse. Still pretty bad, though. She wished she could remember more of that car ride, remember more than burning up, throwing up, and clinging to Vakarian like a lifeline. Technically, he had been her lifeline. Her brain went into damage control mode, but Vakarian was already on it. Clearly he’d been thinking about how to handle the situation. “What did I say about them?” Her words were clipped, cautious.

“Most turians know those names, but it seemed you… knew Nihlus personally? You kept thinking I was him-- but you knew he was dead. I know you were out of it but… most people don’t go throwing around the names of two dead Specters.” He paused, struggling with something internal for a moment before drawing a breath. She let the silence ride on, letting him run out of steam. “I just wanted you to know that I know. I won’t tell anyone. Won’t ask any questions, either. Just didn’t want secrets between us.”

“Well, that’s embarrassing,” she said after a moment. “I wish I’d just puked on your arm some more. Word vomit is so much harder to clean up than actual vomit. You know, Vakarian, if you use this as leverage against me, I’ll have to kill you. I don’t really want people to know I used to hang out with Specters.”

Vakarian chuckled. “The feeling’s mutual.” She looked at him sharply, a question in her eyes, but he shook his head, blue eyes flashing. “Hey,” he said with a warning in his sub vocals. “I said no secrets between us, but that doesn’t mean we have to spill anything else. I don’t want to talk about the past, and I get the sense you don’t either. That’s not secrets, that’s the past. Leave it there. I found out something that you probably didn’t want to share, and I just want you to know that I know, and that I’m not going to do anything with it. That’s all.”

She settled back and took a drink of her whisky to steady herself, gain a moment, hide her relief. “You make a terrible spy.” Jokes! Jokes were good. Humor, for coping!

“Good thing I’m not a spy.”

Her eyes narrowed in suspicion as she made a mock study of him. “Or maybe you’re a really good spy, tricking me into thinking you’re a terrible one so I let my guard down.”

“Well, is it working?” His drink arrived, and he took a sip from the curious fluted cup that was made for stiff turian mouths.

Her mouth quirked, and her answer was out before she could help herself: “Yes.” He was laughing, and she joined, and she only felt a small bit of regret for not being able to follow the drell and the asari. This was good too… it was vital to know that she’d made such a huge slip up, letting Nihlus’ name leave her lips. Gathering Collectors intel was a slow and painstaking process, and she could gather threads as she needed to, get the story from Aria later. Anything with Archangel moved brutally fast, and required her immediate attention. She was also baffled by his honesty, and though she’d never say, utterly grateful for it. Unless he really was a spy… in which case. Her mind began to spiral into a web of possibility and paranoia, fuled by the residual effect red sand had on her neuroplasticity, but that’s when Sensat and Weaver arrived.

Shepard shook off her swirling thoughts and grinned crookedly as she shook Weaver’s hand and nodded to the turian. Sensat was simply terrifying-- a soldier with hard eyes and absolutely no sense of humor. Weaver had a fluid gender, or at least didn’t fit into masculine or feminine, and Shepard made note of it.

“Heard you almost died,” ze said, patting Shepard on the back with unexpected familiarity. Sensat shifted, glaring at Shepard with judgmental eyes.

“Occupational hazard,” she said with a grin. It seemed everyone knew not to say the name “Archangel” in these parts, and they kept conversation vague. They found a booth with comfortable seats, and a few drinks in and they were all talking easily. Shepard laughed in surprise at one point when Weaver flung hirself into Sensat’s lap and Sensat caged hir there with a very human looking kiss-- unyielding mouth plates against soft human lips. There were giggles and moans, and Shepard watched, fascinated for a moment before tearing her eyes away.

Shepard glanced at Vakarian, who was studiously not watching the couple make out, but rather watching _her_ watch them. When their eyes met he just grinned and shrugged.

“They make it work,” he said.

The couple disentangled themselves and Sensat looked embarrassed but pleased, and took another sip of her turian brandy.

“Want to join us, human?” The turian soldier slurred, clearly feeling smug and slightly dazed.

Shepard grinned, not off-put at all. “Naw, but I’d watch.”

Weaver roared in laughter and Vakarian choked on his drink.

Later that night, the four of them staggered from Afterlife. Shepard was sandwiched between Vakarain and Weaver, literally weaving. She and Weaver were singing a rude song they could only half remember the words to. She was half dragging Vakarian as Weaver half dragged her, and they staggered through the hall, grinning as Sensat spooked some vorcha into scrambling down the hall away from them.

“Sensat is a beast,” Shepard slurred to Weaver. “No really, where’d you find her?”

“Around,” Weaver said slyly.

“We met on a ship,” Sensat snapped. “It’s a boring story… that we won’t be telling.”

Weaver snickered as they rolled out the front door, down the twelve steps that lead to afterlife. “But the part about the chest plate? That’s not boring. That’s funny.”  
“No,” Sensat said flatly.

“Come on,” Shepard slurred, “You can’t say chest plate and then-- whoops!” Vakarian missed the last stair and stumbled. Her arm, which had been loosely draped over his cowl snaked around his waist, pulling him back to a somewhat upright position. The shoulder guard on his armor banged into her on the cheek and she recoiled into Weaver, who grabbed her shoulders to steady her.

“Whooo, hot mess,” she breathed, rubbing her cheek. “Shit, Vakarian, you okay?” Vakarian was hugging his waist, looking both very drunk and very scandalized.

“Way to grope a guy, Shepard,” Weaver said, giving her a little shove so the three of them all stood apart now, on the steps of Afterlife-- simply the most conspicuous place to be standing around and gawking drunkenly at each other.

“What?” Shepard looked back between Weaver and Vakarian, who had started laughing…. Nervously, Shepard thought. Why was he nervous? “I missed something,” she said flatly, and Vakarian edged away from her, shaking his head.

“Pro tip,” Weaver whispered conspiratorially. “Grabbing a turian around the waist is like… someone grabbing your tits. Or your ass.”

It rang a faint bell-- turian waists were an erogenous zone-- Weaver would of course know this, and Shepard’s eyes widened.

“Oh my goddess, Vakarian. I’m so sorry.” She was… was she mortified? Why yes, she was. “I was just trying to steady you, it was instinct, honest! You’re wearing armor! How much could you actually feel.”

“It’s the principle of the thing, Shepard! You might have armor over your…. chest things, but I’m not going to go grabbing them because they’re covered.” He sighed. “Didn’t think I’d end the night by getting groped, but… it’s fine. Thanks for the… uh… save.”

“Can we get off the street and hug this out somewhere private?” Sensat growled, looking around nervously.

“Yeah... “ Vakarian coughed and straightened up to his full height. “Big day tomorrow. I’m going to go sober up and uh… sober up.” There was a curious strain in his sub vocals and he cleared his throat.

Shepard was frowning at him, mortification fading into confusion. “You said that already,” she pointed out. She was going to have to do a bit of extranet research about turians and waists and…. ugh.

“Really sober up. See you three at 1300. You know the spot.”

“Night boss,” Weaver said cheerfully, waving him off. Sensat watched his back as Vakarian abruptly departed, and Shepard shrugged.

Wait… did he say _chest things?_ Her breasts? She looked down, noting the two small swells in her armor. Not much there, really. Good god, goddess, all the gods and even Spirits.

“Sooooo, you just groped the boss! What are you gonna do next?” Weaver said in hir best radio announcer voice.

“Shut up, Weaver,” Shepard said, but her heart wasn’t in it. That was bad… and awkward and… ugh, she was drunk. That was bad. Talk about interspecies awkwardness. She wasn’t even _interested_ in Vakarian like that, which possibly made it worse. But, Shepard was a professional (apparently) and what was an accidental grope between team-mates? It happened sometimes, right? So why did she feel like she’d violated him? Like she was a leterous, accidental pervert...

A noise startled her out of the guilt cycle and she looked over… Sensat was chuckling. Shepard thought it was the first time she’d heard the woman laugh.

“It’s not funny Sensat,” she snapped. “I feel awful.”

“Just funny to see the boss so flustered,” Sensat said through another round of uncontrolled chuckles.

“Yeah, hilarious. I just groped the guy. I don’t grope! People shouldn’t get groped!”

“He’ll be fine,” Sensat replied, her laughter finally dying. “Trust me. _You_ can't parce sub vocals."

Shepard was sceptical, but also drunk, and as she waved goodnight to the couple, she decided didn’t trust Sensat one bit.

What a _weird ass night,_ Shepard mused as she stood, looking at Afterlife from the bottom of the stairs. She’d gone out for a simple walk, gotten a social call from someone who was for all intents and purposes her boss, ended up at Afterlife, heard some would be heroes utter the word Collectors, sent said heroes to Aria, and met a tuain-human couple. Not to mention Vakarian had confessed that he’d heard her hallucinating about dead Specters and by the end of it she’d _groped him._ And weirdest thing of all? She hadn’t shot anyone. Not even threatened to shoot anyone… No wait, she’d threatened to kill Vakarian if he spilled her secrets.

She definitely needed to sleep this one off, just to make sure it hadn’t been all in her head... some sort of residual red sand withdrawal or fever dream.

And she still had to talk to Aria about what the asari with the freckles and the handsome drell had wanted. Tomorrow. She was in no shape to talk to Aria tonight-- not that any shape was a good one to talk to Aria about, but she had some dignity left. Maybe. Even if she was an accidental pervert.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two things:  
> -Yes, that is Liara and Feron doing a cameo as they look for the late Commander's body, based on the comic "Mass Effect: Redemption"
> 
> -I tried to make the waist grab a subversion of the "accidental pervert" trope which is usually a male to female directed. I didn't want it to be creepy or played for laughs, but something realistic. It shouldn't be played for laughs because women non-consensually touching men is a thing that happens, and that is not funny or okay (the way it's often played of in popular media). Still, alien physical and cultural misunderstandings are a thing, people fuck up, and when you're drunk and stumbling around, this is totally a thing that could happen. Right? Riiiiight. Poor Garrus.
> 
> One more thing: Weaver. Where did you even come from? I love you.


	9. Quarrelsome Heroes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And the smut commences. Sorry it took 30k words to get here. :I

_"I'd like to tell my story,"_  
_said one of them so bold,_  
_"Oh yes, I'd like to tell my story_  
_'cause you know I feel I'm turning into gold."_

_="A Bunch of Lonesome Heroes," Leonard Cohen_

 

**Shepard**

Time on Omega moved in great, slow globs and then speeding trickles of nothing, events blurring and then crystallizing in moments of sublime horror or beauty. The missions and weeks blurred together-- the ones with Sensat and Weaver being the most memorable, because… guns. It was always guns and blowing things up when Sensat was involved.

Shepard loved every moment of it. That woman had a real talent for mayhem.

She could tell that Sensat didn’t trust her very much, which was not a surprise given the woman’s history as a merc and subsequent betrayal, and Shepard didn’t work very hard to try and win her over. Whatever paranoia Sensat felt towards Shepard, it had something to do with Vakarain, to whom Sensat had developed a strong bond of loyalty. It made sense, in a way. Turians loved their hierarchical relationships, and Sensat was probably relieved to find someone she could give herself over to in work. Shepard had a theory that Sensat couldn’t place Shepard somewhere in the command structure-- She wasn’t Vakarian subordinate, nor his second in command-- that honor went to Sidionis. No, she was too unreliable for that, sometimes disappearing for days or opting out of missions she felt might put her too close to Aira’s disfavor, something else that contributed to Sensat’s mistrust. She could tell Shepard was keeping secrets, and didn’t like it, even though Vakarain had accepted this as par for the course where Shepard and many other of the squad members were concerned. So, Shepard’s place in Archangel’s team was… something else. An advisor, perhaps. Whatever it was, it made Sensat uncomfortable, which amused Shepard to no end.

But despite any tensions between different team members, being part of Archangel reminded her of the innocent years on Omega, before she knew the difference between right and wrong, where she resided in comradery with other orphans and spitfire young gangers and fighters gunning for trouble, playing the hero or the villain with equal gusto and no discretion. Everything was black and white, and she was firmly committed to the mayhem. Now she was an adult, back on Omega, but damn it, instead of playing at war on her home turf as she had so many times in her youth, she was waging it, with real effects, real consequences. And they were winning.

Maybe she was sick, and this fight was a symptom. Maybe it was medicine. She didn’t know. Couldn’t tell. Didn’t care.

The name Archangel was on everyone’s lips. Some loved him, some hated him. Aria was currently amused by him, much to Shepard’s relief. She wasn’t sure how she could chose between them without getting killed by one or the other.

A lot of people died by way of Archangel.

And Shepard took a lot of fire for him.

Currently she was taking fire while running through a warren of hallways in the lower decks of one of the station’s spires, chasing a violent arms smuggler named Gus Williams.

“My shields are down!” That was Sensat, bellowing over the comm as she found herself pinned down and flanked by a handful of Blue Suns mercs. The turian hissed in pain and backpedaled, trying to find cover as the mercs descended. Shit! Weaver let out a strangled cry and started to head to hir lover’s location in a flare of biotics, but Shepard snapped for hir to hold.

“Weaver, take out their shields! Sensat, I’m on my way!” Shepard cursed violently as their target, one Gus Williams, zipped around the corner of the building, but Sensat was about to get riddled with bullets, so the smuggler would have to wait. Weaver hit the foremost merc with an overload that sent electricity arching out to drop the other merc’s shields as well, and Shepard took a deep breath, preparing herself.

She remembered the sensation of falling-turned-flying. Muscle memory took over and Shepard launched herself in a biotic charge that landed her in a crouch at Sensat’s side, blasting the residual energy outward to knock the four oncoming mercs back. Time seemed to slow and Shepard trained her pistol on one, then another, then another of the merc’s heads. Her suit’s VI garbled out lifesign readings and then pronounced each one dead.

Sensat riddled the last Suns merc with bullets, panting as she stumbled back. She was bleeding from her leg, but shook off her partner’s look of concern with a growl. “I’m fine, Weaver. Clean shot, and the medi gel is kicking in.” Weaver nodded, hefting hir sub-machine gun, still looking worried. Shepard felt a twinge of sympathy for the pair-- it must be difficult watching your lover, your _partner_ take fire without rushing to their aid. But Weaver knew hir job, and held the line where ze needed to, and didn’t put all of them in jeopardy by trying to play the hero. Shepard supposed it was helpful when your partner was a competent badass like Sensat.

Shepard surveyed the dead mercs, seeing if they had anything worth taking before adding them to her tally. “That makes fifteen,” Shepard said cheerfully, grinning up at the turian.

“Tied with Arch.” 

“Will you stop kill-counting! Williams is getting away!” Sensat was already taking off down the hall, but Williams had a good head start.

“We’re not gonna make it!” Weaver hissed, hard on Shepard’s heels. “Damn!”

Vakarian’s smooth baritone crackled over the comm. “I’ve got a lock on him-- he’s in the loading dock around the corner from your location.”

Shepard burst out into the shipping bay just behind her squad, and looked around wildly. Vakarian was nowhere to be seen, of course, though his nav point on her HUD indicated he was not far away. He liked fighting high up and from a distance, out of sight of the enemy. Williams was running hard to a shuttle, just out of pistol range and too far to charge. Sensat let off a useless spray of rifle fire, cursing as she raced after him on her injured leg. Williams didn’t spare a backwards glance, reaching desperately for the shuttle door he was about to throw himself through.

The subsonic hiss of a sniper rifle was their only warning. Gore splattered the door of the shuttle and Gus Williams collapsed, shot in the head.

“That’s sixteen,” Vakarian said over the comm, sounding unapologetically smug. She scanned the catwalk and saw him descending a ladder, a hulking shape in blue and sliver armor.

“Damn it!” she snapped, rolling her head along with her eyes. The man was unapologetically competitive, and it got under her skin.

“Win some… mmm, well, I keep winning… all of them. You’ll beat me one day, Shepard. Just not today.”

“Hey, we don’t count my biotic kills! The game is rigged.”

He sauntered over to where Williams’ body lay and began to search the dead man’s armor for anything useful. She followed, feeling a pleasant mixture of amusement and indignation. She’d allowed him the handicap, thinking that it would even the playing field, but that was before she realized what a damn good shot he was. “This is about marksmanship, Shepard. If you stopped hurling yourself at enemies and actually shot them, maybe you could keep up.”

“If you actually engaged in direct combat from time to time you might--” A hoarse voice cut her off from across the bay.

“Hate to break up the pissing contest, but come check this out!” Weaver was over along the side wall, poking into some open shipping crates marked with the logo of a food distribution company that operated in the Traverse. Ze was practically bouncing on hir booted feet, and Shepard and Vakarian exchanged an amused glance. Sensat was already limping over to peer into the crates-- it seemed the medigel was holding her together for now and Shepard’s readout on her HUD said her vitals were stable.

“Spirits,” Sensat whispered.

Vakarian echoed her when he saw what was inside.

Shepard squeezed in between them and her eyes widened. That was a lot of guns.

“Holy shit,” Shepard said, echoing their prayers to her own god: profanity. Ammo, pistols, machine guns, a few boxes of turrets… there was enough of a loadout to arm a small militia.

Shensat got to work checking them to see if they were sabotaged or defective, while Weaver checked the other crates.

“What are we going to do with all of this?” Weaver murmured.

Vakarian was eyeing the loading dock, his eyes falling on the shuttle. “Load up Williams’ transport. We’ll get this stashed and then figure out a way to get it off station. Either dispose of it or…” His voice trailed off, thoughtful. Sensat growled but, Vakarian shook his head. “Give it to someone. Spirits, we really need a base now, don’t we?”

Weaver was pulling out guns one by one and making notes on hir omnitool.

“Let me dig up some contacts,” Shepard said quietly. Vakarian nodded, and she was grateful that he didn’t ask questions. It tended to be his policy, There was a long list of liberated slave groups that might be grateful for the weapons. She’d have to put in a few calls, find out where they were operating.

That's when they heard the noise, a slight scraping and the sliding of armor on metal. Biotics flared around Shepard and the small squad turned as one to face the shuttle. For the briefest of moments Shepard thought that the smuggler had somehow survived his headshot, but Williams was still lying dead on the ground in a pool of his own blood and pieces of his skull.

Leather-clad feet hit the ground, carefully avoiding the dead man’s gore. A human man, slight and wiry with wild orange hair and deep shadows etched below his oddly glowing eyes, slipped from the shuttle and approached the four slowly, hands in the air and a smile on his lips. His face was an odd topography of smooth scars, and Shepard realized he had silvery cybernetic implants in his eyes and aids on his ears, flashing yellow as it caught and coded sound. He had twin pistols at his hips, but the safeties were on and he didn’t move to grab at them. If he did, Shepard would have happily unloaded a clip into his chest without hesitation.

 _“you are archangel?”_ a flat, modulated computer voice said, as the man approached. His mouth was not moving, but the speech was emanating from him.

Four guns trained on the man, but he seemed not to mind in the least. His eyes searched each of them in turn, and settled on Vakarian as the turian stepped forward.

“Who wants to know?” Vakarain’s dual-toned voice was bored, dangerous sounding. Shepard shifted, hoping Vakarian had the sense to be careful here.

_“i am ripper. you got my target. those were supposed to be my guns.”_

“Your guns? I think they belong to me now.”

 _“perhaps they could be our guns,”_ the voice droned on, but Ripper somehow infused the flat, inflectionless voice with subtle emotion as he followed along with small gestures and facial expressions. On the word “our,” he made an elegant twist of his hand as if he was trying to make a deal. Vakarian decided to play along.

“You were trying to take out Williams?”

_“yes. he was a man who hurt many people with his business. and he stole from me.”_

“The guns?”

_“no. other things.”_

“What were you going to do with the guns?”

_“destroy them.”_

“What is your name?”

_“i am the ripper. since you have completed my goal for me i wish to gain a new goal. i wish to work with archangel to purge omega of mercenary scum.”_

Vakarian waved them off, indicating that Shepard, Sensat, and Weaver should relax their guard. Shepard slid into a lazy lean against the wall, pistol held easily and she let her biotics die. The red sand exposure had changed how she felt when using biotics slightly-- making it harder to let go of the dark energy, but she thought that there was a slight increase in her power, and found it a fair trade. She alternated between watching Ripper and Vakarian, wondering which way this would land.

“You just want to join us? Just like that?” 

 _“so you are archangel.”_ Vakarian shifted, nodding. _“i will aid in infiltration, sabotage, and assassination. i work alone. i will not bother you. I hate mercenaries and will fight with you.”_

There was no humor in the man’s voice because it was strictly a computer simulated readout, but he smiled wide, opening his mouth and… clicking his tongue, or what was left of it. There was a scar-covered lump of flesh where it had been, and Shepard realized why he used the voice reader. It looked like his tongue had been ripped out, and healed raggedly. He was making a strange deep choking sound and Shepard realized that was the sound of his laughter.

Vakarian rested the butt of his rifle on the ground, and looked Ripper over.

“All right. We aren’t very organized. Give me your contact information and I will call on you when I have a mission. You can contact me if you have something that you would like me to work on with you. That is how Archangel works.”

_“what of those guns?”_

Shepard pushed off the wall as Sensat shifted, eyeing the newcomer and Shepard with mistrust. “I’ll be shipping them out to some anti-slavery militias. Does that sit well with you?”

 _“if that is what it requires for me to join you, i give you these guns for you do disperse as you wish.”_ Shepard nodded, though she didn’t see that Ripper had much choice in the matter-- he was outnumbered four to one, and each and every one of them was willing to shoot him for very little reason.

“Sensat, Shepard, you deal with the guns. Weaver, get the shuttle ready. I’m going to vet this guy.”

They sprung into action and Vakarian motioned for Ripper to follow him away from their work. Shepard turned her attention to the weapons cache, her mind whirling with possibility.

She’d have to oversee the deliveries personally, of course. Guns coming from Omega were notoriously unreliable and resistance leadership would need convincing that the gift was not sabotage. Shepard was a trusted name among anti-slavers and freedom fighters. She came with a guarantee.

She dashed off a few extranet messages, putting her plans into motion. She hoped Vakarian wouldn’t mind her absence from the station for a while as she got the guns where they needed to go. Not all the work they started on Omega should end there, right? Somehow she thought he would understand.

Her mouth twisted at the little trickle of guilt... but, it wasn’t like she’d signed a contract with him or anything.

“You’re just going to walk off with those guns, human?” Shepard dragged her eyes away from her omnitool display and fixed on Sentat with a raised eyebrow. She didn’t like the turian’s dual flanged tone. Sensat had claimed that Shepard couldn’t parse sub-vocals, but the woman was making it easy enough to understand. She was posturing for control.

“I’m appropriating them, to be distributed among my contacts, turian,” she spat back. Weaver looked between them, nervous. “Did you have other plans for them?”

Sensat bristled. “I’m going to destroy them. Who are you going to give them to? Or are you going to sell them as soon as Archangel turns his back, turn a pretty profit yourself?”

“Excuse me? Who exactly do you think you’re dealing with, here?”

“I’m not sure, Shepard. That’s the problem! Archangel trusts you, but you haven’t given us any real reason to. He’s got a blind spot where you’re concerned, and you disappear for… days, weeks at a time! Everyone knows why Weaver and I are here… what about you, huh?”

Shepard felt her hands clench, and her chin rise, her pride surging forward and demanding that Sensat be put in her place. Clearly the turian had no clue who Shepard was, or what she was capable of-- trust was in short supply on Omega, but Shepard was not about to be questioned by some ex-Blue Suns merc who was trying to make up for a lifetime of bad choices.

“Sensat, please…” Weaver was hovering between the two of them, hir apprehension growing steadily. “Shepard hasn’t given us any reason not to--”

“You’re too trusting, Weave,” Sensat snapped. “Why should we bother with distributing? Blow up the guns, and there’s no issue, no room for error, or for--”

“For…? For what, Sensat? Betrayal? I saved your ass today. I’m always watching you back.”

“You’re injured Sensat,” Weaver was trying to be the reasonable one, caught between the two glaring women. “Let’s all just take a--”

“Didn’t Archangel ask you to clean up and lock down that shuttle?” Shepard snapped. Weaver looked taken aback, and stepped away a few paces, crossing hir arms and glaring at both of them.

Sensat’s mandibles flared and she took a step forward, literally growling. Shepard smiled, not moving an inch. Six and a half feet of angry turain was all well and good, but Sensat was injured, and a simple blow to the wound would buckle her armor and incapacitate her. Besides, Shepard had essentially been raised by a Krogan battlemaster. Sensat was nothing like facing down the Patriarch when she’d done something to piss him off as a teen. Not even a contest.

Shepard leaned in until they were nearly nose to nose. “There are people in this sector that need these guns, Sensat,” Shepard managed through clenched teeth. “While you were _dabbing_ with the Blue Suns, deciding if you wanted to be a merc or not, I was out there, risking my life, _helping_ those people. I still do what I can. And these guns… might mean the difference between freedom and slavery for many of them. If you still think I aim to profit from people’s freedom, you are deeply, gravely mistaken.” Each word was slow and careful, edged with all the bottled rage she kept close and tight to her heart when speaking of slavers and pirates.

Mindor, her brain screamed. It would be so easy to justify herself if she dropped the name of that colony. Everyone knew about Mindoir-- it had become a symbol of humanity’s early galactic blunders, the Alliance’s inability to protect its expanding interests. But she would not use her birth-family’s death as justification for gun running. She had tendinous enough connection to those memories, their meaning, and Sensat hadn’t earned the right to know.

“I’m taking the guns, Sensat,” she said, watching as a defeated look entered the woman’s golden eyes. Shepard felt a brief rush of triumph as she quelled a predator. Sensat backed down.

“I need medical attention,” she growled. “Take your guns, but when we don’t see you again, I’ll be the first to tell Arch ‘I told you so.’”

Shepard crossed her arms over her chest and waited for the other woman to move first, suppressing the urge to fidget. She had a lot of work to do. Her comm lit up and she took the call from an old friend, an asari maiden she used to run with back in her early twenties.

“Hello Ceirea,” she said, not taking her eyes of Sensat as the turian limped across the room to stand with Vakarian and the new human. “I’ve got some guns here that I’d like to run out to some of your depots.”

Ceirea was delighted-- there were some colonies that could use the turrets and she was always looking for more basic firepower to distribute among her anti-slavery networks.

“Looking forward to seeing you again, Shepard,” she said, voice thin and crackling from a bad connection, but Shepard could imagine the young asari was practically bouncing with excitement. Shepard had been something of a mentor to the ex-slave back in the day before she’d had run off to play Specter. Now Ceirea had her own team, and was doing good work on the edge of Council space and the Traverse, work that would benefit immensely from an infusion of firepower.

Getting off the call, Shepard signaled to Vakarian.

“I’m taking these to an old contact in the Traverse,” she said.

Vakarian nodded. “How long will you be gone?” She detected a faint edge of disappointment, but he covered it well.

“Two weeks there, two weeks back. Plus whatever trouble I find along the way, and trust me, there’s always trouble.” She hesitated a moment. It wasn’t like she owed him any details or constant updates but… “I’ll have to go comm dark,” she warned.

Vakarian grinned and shrugged. “Bring me back a kill count. I’ll keep mine up to date and...I’ll try to leave you some mercs for when you get back.”

She laughed through her nose, grinned crookedly with hooded eyes to hide the sudden chill that shot down her spine. Wasn’t that essentially Nihlus had said to her before he’d left for Eden Prime? Something about a kill count, and that she better leave some mercs for him when he got back?

It wasn’t an omen. It was just… poetry. Vakarian and Nihlus just… rhymed.

“You better,” she said, and went to go load the shuttle.

~~~

**Garrus**

This dream was different. There is no noise, no terror or defeat. It was...in the present. Happening now.

_He is somewhere quite. Muffled moans, the shock of cold metal against bare plate and hide on his back. Pressed into a bulkhead. Some new, clean space, far from Omega. Someone touching him softly and he wants more: hands that have too many fingers trailing at the edges of his plates. A soft mouth follows, hot tongue, too short and wet to be turian seeking the gaps between hard carapace where the delicate flesh nestles, protected._

_Safe._

_Strange._

_A thought: This is not Turian Sex._

_Another thought: More. Please._

_He says it out loud. “More. Please.”_

_Begging._

_A flash of dark red. Is that… hair? Fine, abundant fibres spiraling on themselves into the void. He gets distracted by the glimpse of a smile. Flat, white teeth, no spaces._

_Arms, small and wiry, surprising in their strenght go to his waist, catching him and he vocalizes low and rumbling in his chest. He fingers himself, his groin plates separating but his stiff, wet cock still buried in his sheath. Wriggling his fingers deep in the pillowed flesh that cushions his cock, he teases the pointed head, circling a talon around and around the tip just how he likes when he’s first getting going. Small fingers with tiny, stiff nails follow, seeking the tip. He groans, trying to keep his cock inside its sheath for longer. He doesn't want it to end. They are only just beginning and already he’s this far gone?_

_A laugh, low and rich, teasing and full of warmth, and that too-soft mouth finds his too hard one and presses there. A kiss. His lover pulls away and he mourns the lost contact with a low growl and she… it is a woman, she laughs, gray eyes sharp and hungry, and she is..._

Garrus moaned himself awake with her name on his tongue, stupid with sleep and arousal, and found his hand on his parted groin, cock starting to emerge from its sheath which was leaking lubrication. He was making a mess. He noted with faint amusement that he’d been acting out his dream as he slept, fingers buried in his sheath, circling the head of his cock as it leaked fluids.

He was in a room that looked unfamiliar at first, the shadow of bunk beds in regimented order along the wall across from him. The… base. Archangel’s base. His new home as of just a few days ago. Garrus went completely still, heart pounding as he tried not to replay the dream in vivid detail, instead casting around to see if he’d woken anyone with his possible moaning-- Sidions was across the room, breathing slow and steady. Vortash-- the new turian mechanic they’d recruited was also asleep in the bunk beside the other turian. No one stirred. Not that wet dreams were unusual or even embarrassing for turians-- but Shepard’s name on his lips might have garnered a comment. Or two. Or a dozen. He was just glad Melenis wasn’t sleeping at the base tonight.

Butler had tried to convince Garrus to take the large bedroom on the second floor as his own, but Garrus thought it would be better to sleep in the bunk room like any other soldier, like in his Hierarchy days. He was already treated with such tentative difference from most of his growing squad, respect bordering on awe in some cases, like with Sidionis and Weaver. He didn’t want to be different-- and thus he left the private bedroom open for whoever needed it, be it for getting patched up after a mission, or to take a nap away from prying eyes, or for sex. Turns out a lot of his squad were fucking each other. It was very… turian of him, sleeping with his crew and leaving a single private space free for community use.

In that moment, he wished he hadn't been quite so generous. He breathed slowly to calm his demanding arousal, which resulted a painful twinge and writhing twitch of his cock as he thought about those lips.

The dreams had started after she’d left for her gun-running mission. This wasn’t the first, but he knew what had prompted this most recnt one. He’d received an extranet message earlier that day, highling encrypted, containing a single number: 38. Her kill count. She was beating him, but not by much. The whole thing should have made him exceedingly uncomfortable, but… it didn’t. They were the best dreams he’d had in ages. Safe, enticing, promising more, that hot wet tongue gliding along the seams of his plates. Did his fantasy of a human mouth come close to reality? Okay Vakarian, get a grip on… no not a grip on your cock damn it, a grip on your desire, you horny, lonely bastard. He relaxed his hand, keeping gentle pressure on his groin as he he suppressed a shudder of pleasure at the memory, his cock twitching as it had in that moment when he felt her arm tightening around his waist as he drunkenly stumbled down the steps of Afterlife, flustered by the unexpected contact but also… pleased and… Spirits, so aroused. He’d gone to sober up, the memory of her arms around his waist chasing him until he’d been driven to getting off to the thought of just her hands touching his sheath. Her weird, small, scarred, alien hands. He’d chalked it up to spending too much time with Weaver and Sensat, but now it was infecting his dreams. _She_ was infecting his dreams. And he didn’t mind at all. He welcomed those dreams.

Sex dream about her or not, Garrus wanted her back on Omega. He was irritated that she was taking so long in returning from her mission-- it had been nearly two months, running their liberated guns off-station after the Williams mission, though he knew he had no right to be impatient. She was a freelancer, and had been operating in the Terminus Systems far longer than he had. Sensat’s worries that she had defected with the guns to make her own profit were not out of the question, but he wasn’t going to doubt her just yet. He’d just got that message from her, and besides he’d seen too much rage in her, things too close to trauma and hate regarding slavers to make him think that she was unreliable or disloyal. Garrus wasn’t exactly worried about her, but he missed having her around, for reasons that had nothing to do with these recently developing… sex dreams. Missions just went more smoothly, and she was the only one who came close to beating his kill counts. Archangel’s squad was undeniably stronger with Shepard as his advisor.

And she’d have a lot to say about the Base. She’d have found ten things wrong with it in the first five minutes of a tour, then thrown herself on the couch and started heckling as the rest of the team as they went about their day, making herself at home and claiming space as her own as she always did, wherever she went.

_Spirits, Shepard, what have you done to me?_

He wanted her.

With supreme effort, Garrus wrenched his mind away from Shepard. She wasn’t here. He had… things to do. And he needed to wash his hands.


	10. Contingencies & Redundancies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter tried to kill me.
> 
> Thank you so much for reading and commenting this far. Ya'll are keeping me motivated and optimistic about this fic! <3

**Eagle Nebula**

**Shepard**

In her more existential moments, away from the dangerous business of gun running, slaver hunting and crime fighting, Shepard sometimes wondered what it was that made people ask her for favors. She had a few theories, mostly involving how badass she was and how she always managed to get the job done despite impossible odds, but she suspected that there was more to it. Was it because she didn’t charge? No, that wasn’t quite it. There was a laundry list of competent, deadly mercenaries in the Traverse who would work pro-bono when slaves were involved. Shepard wasn’t unique in her hatred. Why did people always come to her? Maybe it was that she never said no. Maybe she should start cashing in on favors herself, or negotiate more. After a decade in the Traverse, there were a lot of people who owed her, after all.

Whatever the reason for being the go-to favor-doing freelancer in the shittier half of the Galaxy, Ceirea knew she’d get help when Shepard got involved.

The trip en route to Ceirea’s base brought trouble exactly once: a pirate band had ambushed her directly out of the relay. Nothing a bit of fancy shooting and a jump to FTL hadn't taken care of, except that a lucky shot from one of the ships had disabled her little ship, the _Plain Jane’s_ VI. The rest of the damage was negligible, but the entire server core was fried beyond repair, and it would take a talented engineer and a few programmers to get access the redundant data and install it to new hardware. Shepard was now flying the ship manually, not sleeping as much as she should without a VI to watch her scanners, but tt could have been worse. At least she’d got a body count out of the fight with the pirates. She sent it to Vakarian when she got the chance, feeling smug. Thirty eight. Beat that, Archangel.

The rest of the trip was innocent as a spring lamb-- if that spring lamb was packing half a ton of muntions in their starship’s cargo hold and wishing there were stims around to keep awake.

Ceirea’s base was nestled in the craggy hills of some unnamed moon, orbiting a gas giant in the Eagle Nebula. The base was a simple, prefab affair, populated by former slaves and ex colonists, mostly human and asari who were the backbone of a new underground pipeline that extracted slaves from deep in the Traverse and brought them into the relative safety of Council controlled space. This base would be the last stop before safety for many newly freed people, and the guns Shepard had brought from Omega would insure that their freedom would be defended to the last.

The guns had barely been offloaded when Ceirea asked her one simple favor, which lead to another, and then another. Time passed in a blur of quick trips and helping to get the base organized and training operatives on combat. She had to show someone how to set up the turrets. She had to teach teenagers about weapons safety. These things were not problems… it was the most recent ask which gave Shepard paused. It was a simple reconnaissance mission that would take her to Hawking Eta, near the galactic core. There was a wildcat mining operation that supposedly relying on slave labor, and an operative who had been gathering intel had gone silent. Ceirea was worried something had happened to him and wanted Shepard to find out what, and since it was on her way back home...

Except that it wasn’t reall really, other than in the vaguest sense that Hawking Eta was sort of between her current location and Omega.

Shepard was unsure on the surface, though she knew deep down she would never say no, even though her VI was fried and the stop-over would nearly double her return trip to Omega. Ceirea had looked at her with such sincerity, nearly begging and she just _couldn’t_ say no. Not when she knew the price. Not when there were slaves just a few bits of intel away from freedom. It wouldn’t even be that dangerous if she stayed low, just intel gathering. Besides, what were a few extra Mass Relay jumps between old comrades?

She stayed in a small room at the little base Ceirea had set up, but had turned down the offer of Ceirea’s bed and private company. It had been a pleasant enough thought … Shepard didn’t find the asari un-attractive, of course, but she had two hard and fast rules: one against having sexual relationships with anyone who had experienced slavery, and another against people who had sex by getting inside her head. That ruled out Ceirea on two counts. It wasn’t for Ceirea’s benefit-- it was for Shepard’s. Asari sex and people who had been slaves It brought up… too many things for Shepard, things she liked to keep buried when other people were around. Things that were private. About Mindor, about loss histories, alternate universe where she’d never lost her family, or she’d been taken as a slave instead of being brought to Omega, where perhaps she had just died-- And there were things about her life on Omega, about Aria that... There were too many secrets to let anyone poke around inside her head.

Ceirea understood. She always did. And Shepard always said yes to favors. They were both good for it. But one thing Shepard wasn’t good for was saying goodbye.

They stood in the docking hangar, the sickly green sky half taken up by the orange gas giant the moon orbited, the other half spangled with stars, even in day time.

“I am going to miss you, Shepard. I only get to see you again for such short times.” Ceirea wrapped her arms around Shepard for a moment, stretching on booted tiptoes to reach the taller woman’s neck. Shepard leaned into the hug before pulling away to study her former protege, hands pressed on her shoulders to keep her there a moment.

“I’m proud of you,” she said softly. “What you’ve built here is amazing.” She meant it too. Behind them, Shepard’s small corvette was undergoing some basic repairs, thought there was nothing they could do for her VI. Crates of guns were stacked along a wall, and Shepard felt a rush of satisfaction that she’d actually done something useful here, something that might save lives, and give people a second chance at living free.

Ceirea smiled tiredly. “I’m proud of me too,” she said. “This has been a labor of years… since… since you left.” Shepard dipped her head. Ceirea had been there when Shepard had met Nihlus all those years ago, when he’d helped them run a group of slaves from their liberated planet to safely, and had been torn between happiness for her friend and understandably upset at the loss of her mentor when Shepard had decided to work with him instead of continuing to travel with Ceirea. “I was so sorry to hear about Nihlus, Shepard,” she said softly. “I know what he meant to you, and to lose him in such a way. And then the Council… Do you regret it? Not becoming a Specter?”

Shepard stiffened when Ceirea said his name. The last time she’d heard it, Vakarian had told her she’d been hallucinating, but he hadn't asked her any questions, hadn’t pried into how she was feeling. At least Ceirea had thrown her a bone with the question about not being a Specter so she could avoid talking about her dead friend and mentor.

“I don’t regret a moment-- not of the training, not of quitting. I just regret letting Council regs jerk me around for as long as they did before up and leaving. I’m not meant to be cooped up in some office, waiting for orders. I tend to…. break things.”

Ceirea grinned. “I cannot even imagine you on the Citadel…. You would get arrested in a day!”

“It was a near thing once or twice-- had to steer clear of the bars while I was there or it would be real trouble… for C-Sec.” She grinned, hiding her triumph at successfully diverting a serious conversation.

Ceirea shook her head, even going so far as to roll her eyes, a “human” thing Shepard had taught her: irony. She changed the subject. “You are sure you do not mind doing this for me before you return to the Terminus? You will be fine without your VI?”

Shepard weighed the question as if her task were a vacation she was considering. “I’ve missed the Traverse,” she said. “The VI’s no problem. Not like I haven’t flown manual and relied on stims before. And anyway, you never know what you’ll find here at the heart of the galaxy…” She grinned crookedly. “Monsters and miracles in equal measure.”

Ceirea smiled again. “You always did have a way with words, Shepard. What was the expression again? Something is… fishy?” Shepard laughed deep in her belly. “You remembered!” Another thing she’d taught Ceirea along with sarcasm, and how to shoot a gun, were a handful of human idioms.

“Yes. This whole thing with my agent going silent on Presrop… it is fishy. I need to know why my contact has stopped responding so we plan our next steps.”

“I’m going to find out for you, Ceirea. And if he’s in trouble, I’ll do everything I can to haul him out of it and send him back to you.”

“Thank you, Shepard.” A human teenager came up to them then, with a crate full of supplies she’d requested: a month’s worth of rations, purification tablets, a few packs of medi gel, and a bottle of stims. She’d have some forced vigils ahead, staying alert to the dangers of the Hawking Eta cluster without her VI to help.

“We’ll be in touch Ceirea,” she said. Shepard hated goodbyes, so she didn’t say them. She just turned and boarded the _Jane_ , stowed the supplies, and began the pre-flight check, waving the mechanic off with a nod of thanks.

~~~

**Hawkwing Eta Cluster, Century System**

 

From Ceirea’s system it was an simple jump through to the Chandrasekhar system in Hawking Eta, a cluster which hugged dangerously close to the galactic core. From there, Shepard manually plotted course to a tiny moon named Presrop, in a little-maped solar system called Century.

The jump was the easy part-- save the fact that it would alert anyone who was watching the relay that a lone corvette had arrived in the system. Shepard had to be constantly vigilant. In such a barren, unpopulated sector of the galaxy, any movement through the system was like blood in the water to a shark. And Shepard was most definitely not the shark in this instance. But… no trouble had found her. No fancy flying was required.

Her course was smooth. Monotonous. This sector was dead, and Shepard was feeling the exhaustion and boredom seep in as she settled back into the pilot's chair in her tiny cabin, her head jerking as she startled back into alertness when her omnitool pinged. It was time to take another round of stims, though she really just wanted a nap. According to her telemetry, she estimated that the _Jane_ would intercept with Presrop in three hours.

She tapped the bottle of small white pills with one finger, doing the math.

She’d gotten an hour of sleep every ten hours over the past 48. Four hours sleep over two sleep cycles. Take a pill now, and it gave her seven solid hours of recon before she needed another dose, which would be her last before she fully burnt out and would need to rest. That would leave her stranded on Presrop, or traveling through a dangerous sector in without anyone to watch her scanners while she slept.

Ideal scenario: she’d extract Ceirea’s informant and he could co-pilot while she caught up on sleep and leveled out.

Alternate scenario: There were probably slaves that needed rescuing. She’d have one of them fly the ship while she slept.

Last resort: Find a foxhole and take a nap once the intel was gathered, and leave once she was safe to fly again.

Maybe it was the stims making her overconfident, but if there was one thing Nym Shepard excelled at, it was improvising.

She took another dose.

Three hours passed with exaggerated slowness. Though her ship was too small to pace through properly, she made a good go of it, stopping to check her scanners ever few circuits of the flight deck. She was tired and cagey, impatient to get this task done so she could finally get back to Omega.

She laughed at the thought. Back to Omega? When had she ever been impatient to get back there? And yet the sentiment rang true to her brain, high and wild as it was. She missed working with Vakarian, who had a sense of inevitability about him-- his missions, no matter how desperate or seemingly futile they were, would have satisfying conclusions. The man did not lack for style, she gave him that much.

Out her in the cold of space near the core of the galaxy, Shepard felt small and vulnerable, and so very alone. She’d feel better once she hit planetside and got some actual work done. She’d fell even better when she got the hell out of the Hawking Eta cluster and got her VI fixed.

As sensor whined in alarm and Shepard jumped to the console, knocking a pile of empty ration cartons to the deck as she clutched either side of the display and scanned the information sprawling across the screen. She was in scanning distance of the moon and set the sensors to search for lifesigns at the mining base where Ceirea’s contact was supposedly located.

There were no lifesigns being read. That couldn’t be right. No lifesigns in the entire complex? Ceirea’s briefing had said there were nearly seventy wildcat miners present on the moon, nearly half of those slaves. Shepard’s brows drew down as she read the data again. She set out a wider scan of the planet, and got nothing. Presrop was cold and jagged with no breathable atmosphere. The highest form of non-alien life was bacteria, and the mining compound was the only form of colonization. And there were _no lifesigns_.

It looked like mission parameters had just changed from intel and extraction to find out what the hell had happened. Shepard got a sudden image of bodies strew across shipping crates and sprawled across the floor, or slumped at the wheels of vehicles, and shuddered. Perhaps nothing so dire… a mining accident?

Presrop, jagged, brown and unremarkable, grew larger in her viewport and she made her descent. The planet it orbited, Klendagon, kept catching her eye with it’s malevolent yellow-gold effulgence and the huge, continent spanning rift carving it surface as if cut by a moon-sized cleaver. This was _not_ a system people would be vacationing to any time soon.

Shepard took the ship down fast and quiet, finding a landing zone in the form of a high plateau above the compound that would keep her ship from reach of all but the most determined scavengers. Just because there were no lifesigns on the scan didn’t mean that she was going to be careless, after all.

She double checked the bindings and seals on her hardsuit-- heavier than her commando armor but with the added benefit of environmental control and proper shields, and donned her breather helmet.

Armed with a shotgun and a pistol, loaded with medigel, a bottle of stims, weighed down with heatsinks, she palmed opened the airlock and slid down the ladder, landing in a puff of frozen dust. Below her was the mining complex in two distinct parts: the compound where the workers lived (or used to live) and shipping tarmac a half click away, where a freighter class starship docked, dwarfing the other half a dozen smaller transports. This was a wildcat operation, not sanctioned by any official company or government, but they were certainly well equipped. She’d have to find out how many ships were supposed to be docked-- maybe some had left and taken people with them.

It was a long, steep hike down the jagged, rocky hill-- almost a cliff, that lead to the plateau, but eventually she was among the the slipshod prefabs and rusted mining equipment that made the compound. Her footfalls crunched on the frozen earth and her pistol preceded her as she examined her surroundings, heart beating a steady tattoo of unease. Everything was intact, and the place was completely empty. She’d been expecting bodies, expecting to be disturbed by some grisly scene, but somehow the empty complex, devoid of life, even _former_ life, was more disturbing than corpses. She could deal with corpses.

Ghost colonies? Not so much.

There had been no crisis here, nothing that spelled disaster. No one had died, at least not here. It was as if everyone had suddenly decided as one to up and leave the colony in the middle of lunch, and not take anything with them.

Once inside the surface level of the compound, she scanned the environment for biohazards, contaminants, anything that might point to what the hell had happened here. There was nothing, and she was starting to get worried. Her steps were eerily muffled by the prefab walls and the crates and furniture and personal effects left as if people would be returning at any moment to resume their lives.

Shouldn’t empty places echo?

She wandered through barracks, bathrooms, offices, storage and still hadn’t found any bodies, but she did find a number of loaded credit chits just lying around for the taking, and in the prefab that seemed to serve as an armory she found a shield modulator that was halfway done being integrated into a miner’s dig suit. Both the creds and the modulator ended up stowed away on her person. If no one was around, she might as well help herself. Not like anyone else was using it.

She paused in a large, central room that looked like a mess hall. There was minimal, but visible signs of struggle here, just a few overturned tables and spilled trays. Shepard poked the nearest tray of food with a fork and and noted the mold. It had been a few days-- the timeline matched up with Ceirea’s agent going dark.

The security on a terminal in the next room, some sort of office, was basic and even with her limited knowledge of hacking it was a matter of moments before she was in among an abundance of very boring records: daily work reports, inventory, and most importantly, flight logs, until all manually created reports ceased exactly five days ago. The virtual intelligences and automated systems like life support and systems checks were still generating their own reports as if nothing was wrong. No system failures, no accidents, no incoming starships or suppliers. There were records of the main freighter docked, as well as five other personal crafts. Hadn’t she counted six? Perhaps she wasn’t alone after all… or the records were not well kept. She searched for Ceirea’s operative in the system and found that he had indeed been on the planet, a human man hired as a miner a little over two solar weeks ago. She searched for security footage, but it was not on this particular system, so she would have to get to the security offices in order to find video feeds.

The sense of wrongness grew as she waded through the compound, heading for the security hub located a few levels below ground. She was growing more and more uneasy, feeling sweaty and itchy under her armor as her mind tried to come up with scenarios.

Scenario one: the mine had been evacuated by authorities, miners arrested, not leaving anyone time to take personal effect. Plausible, but left questions about why the authorities had not established control or locked down the compound.

Scenario two: the miners had abandoned their claim…. Along with their ships, their gear, their creds and left the planet… somehow? How had they left? Unclear. Required more evidence.

Scenario three: the colonists had been…. Evaporated? Some kind of particle weapon? There were no radiation signatures, no damage to the mine, and the concept was too far into the realm of science fiction for her to entertain without further evidence. Implausible.

She was going to bet her newfound credits on scenario one, with the slight addendum that perhaps it was not arrest...

Just ahead was the security hub, and she palmed open the door. A flicker of black was her only warning before the shocking sound of submachine gun fire ripped through the silent compound. The sound was a like a sundering-- like the shattering of a bulkhead or the crack of bone-- wrong, warning of impending death or pain. There were not lifesigns, but here was someone very much alive and open firing on her, sending her heart racing as adrenaline took over and she dove for cover, cursing in a confused string Portuguese, English, and asari Galactic Standard. Someone had fired without question, making them an enemy by default… though Shepard would have done the same if their situations were reversed, given how twitchy and on edge the abandoned colony had made her. Or perhaps that was the stims and lack of sleep fueling her paranoia...

The fire stopped and she peered around the door frame just in time to catch another flicker of black whipping around the corner.The security room now stood empty save for a bank of monitors that were solid static snow, and she rushed over to the console, her cursing continuing. She got into the system in a few moments, and cursed again. They been messing with the security logs! Databanks were empty, wiped clean. A few clicks of her omnitool and she got the cameras back online She scanned the monitors and saw not one, but two figures hustling down a corridor… they both wore helmets, but looked human. Black armor. Fit, agile. Armed lightly. One male, the other female. She caught a flash of orange on both of their suits, some kind of insignia before, the female’s helmet swung towards the camera and she raised her SMG. There was a distant patter of fire and one of the screens on the wall in front of Shepard went blank.

They had the records of what had happened here, Shepard was sure of it. Perhaps they were involved in some way as well…. Shepard sprinted to follow, skidding as she missed a turn and then hurrying down the hall to where she saw an elevator, and two figures in black, waiting. One of them had… a sword?

 _Space ninjas?_ Great.

The woman raised her gun. Biotics flared around Shepard. For a moment they seemed to strike a timeless balance, Shepard in mid step as the elevator dinged open. Sword guy began backing into the elevator as he reached for the weapon on his back, but Shepard roared she allowed herself to be flung towards her targets at terrifying speeds. But as she rode the biotic charge, her roar changed from one of power to one of pain. Nerves lit on fire as she struck home, and the three of them tumbled into the elevator. The doors slid shut with a helpful ding, and pain flared along Shepard’s nerves-- it was like... Shepard’s gray eyes widened behind the visor of her helmet as her biotics tried to tear her apart from the inside. The feeling was sickeningly familiar to what she’d gone through just weeks ago-- yet alarmingly different, namely because she didn’t know _why_. Her opponents were scrambling to their feet in the small space as she started to panic.

She had wanted to demand some answers, talk them out of violence, ask what the hell was going on, but the pain made her capable of only one noise: screaming. She tasted blood and sniffed, then choked as liquid bubbled in her sinuses. Nosebleed. Something wrong with her amp.

_Let go of the biotics Nym. Let them go… and the pain will stop._

_Why does it hurt?_

_Doesn't matter right now. You’re about to get your ass kicked. Let go!_

Her biotics… hurt and she let let the energy around her die, sighing into the pain. Submitting. Sword guy had his blade out, but the space was too tight for him to use it properly and she kicked his feet out from under him as she regained her composure. There was a tumble of bodies, a scuffle as they tried to fight. The elevator was moving with agonizing slowness and she levered herself into a crouch, slamming the woman with the gun into the wall. They grappled for a moment, the woman landing a few sharp, powerful blows. She felt one of her ribs pop, and groaned. Shepard felt a powerful urge to reach for her biotics again. It was her training, her nature, and she… couldn’t. Wouldn’t. The pain would blind her and she’d be at these people’s mercy. The woman rushed her slamming Shepard against the wall, but Shepard had her knee up and into the woman’s groin before slamming a foot down on her instep. The woman staggered and Shepard lunged, her hand wrapping around the wrist of the woman’s gun hand, pointing the weapon towards the ceiling as they slammed into the opposite wall again. It was a savage, silent fight. Shepard knocked the woman’s hand it repeatedly against the wall until she dropped the weapon, feeling bones break. Shepard wound back and was about to punch the woman in her throat where the armor was weak, when she saw the woman’s eyes, dark behind a tinted visor, flicker over her shoulder. She let go of the woman, trying to spin as she she realized sword guy must be behind her, but felt a new kind of pain, sharp and searing, stab through her mid back, just above her kidneys. Shepard looked down and saw an inch of razor thin steel protruding through her abdomen, and then an icy throb as the blade was wrenched free. That thrust was meant for her organs... was meant to be fatal.

The elevator chimed its arrival, the doors sliding open.

The pain in her gut ate everything else into oblivion for a few precious seconds and then a hand was at her throat. She was being dragged, but a woman’s voice cut through the white noise in her ears.

“Leave her!”

“What do you expect we should do, then?” The voice was male, and sounded to be full of contempt. She looked up at her captor, his hands on the seals on her helmet, wrenching it off and tossing it aside. Her hands twitched, empty. She’d dropped her pistol somewhere, probably during her biotic charge.

_You lost your gun, you fucking idiot, and now you’ve got a belly wound and you’re going to die._

“Just… knock her out, and we can go. This wasn’t a killing mission. She’s… human.”

“You carry that gun for show, then?” The man sounded exasperated, and Shepard didn’t blame him. In their place, she’d probably execute herself on the spot and be done with it. They had all the answers and she had none, after all. No loose ends.

“The security foottage” Shepard rasped, coughed, and spat blood. She’d hoped it would come out more demanding than choking. She tried again. “What happened… here?”

The man giggled. He actually giggled behind his helmet, but he didn’t answer.

The woman turned away, clutching her maimed hand. “Let’s go.”

Shepard caught a flash of an orange emblem on her shoulder. Cerberus. The man’s hand tightened on her throat. “Nice shotgun,” he said, jerking it from the mag clip on her back. Shepard growled, but he raised his sword. She tried to embrace her biotics in a panicked rush of blue and damn the pain and the consequences, but dark energy simply flared weekly around her, jolting her nerves with more pain, and the man brought the heavy grip of his blade down on her temple with force that could shatter bone.

A universe of stars exploded behind her eyes, and then everything went black.

~~~

She woke up, and she was alone, once again the only living thing on the colony. It took her a few tries to even remember what had happened.

Colony empty. Not empty, two people there-- she’d attacked them. Been attacked. Cerberus. Got stabbed.

She hadn’t been stabbed in _years_. Not since that one time at Afterlife and that volus had pulled a knife on her and… okay, getting distracted. _Focus, Nym._

Shepard took self-inventory while lying still. Pain everywhere. A broken rib, bruised and bloody face, possible skull fracture. Acute pain her gut which was bleeding sluggishly from both her front and back. Blood loss was significant but not to the point of immediate exsanguination, but it was pooling in her armor and leaking out onto the floor. Stims were still going strong-- not helping the bleeding as they raised her blood pressure bringing her closer to bleeding out.

She wasn’t dead, so no vital organs or major arteries had been seriously damaged-- no gut toxins leaking into her blood.. Maybe some minor organs and arteries had been damaged, like her pride, or her intestines.

She groaned as she brought up her omnitool, had her suit apply medigel to her gut, checking her vitals. Medigel didn’t work on internal bleeding though. Pulse was all over the place, and she was running a low fever. Her eyes were having trouble focusing, and she explored her temple with cautious fingers, coming away sticky with blood.

She groaned and pushed herself upright, sliding back so she could lean against a wall as she let her body make things known to her, like lightheadedness and nausea, like neural damage. Like profound weakness. Her brain hurt. Her… everything hurt.

And… something else, something that she couldn’t quite remember, but was important… very important…

The back of her neck itched. She touched the bare skin with the hand of her undamaged arm, feeling the slight bump of the amp where it rode at the base of her skull. A sudden memory of pain, of a biotic charge ending in tearing agony as she rode an elevator with two people who were trying to kill her. Oh... That’s right! Her biotics were on the friz.

Her head dropped back to rest against the wall, auburn curls frizzed and matted with sweat and blood. She sighed, letting her mind relax into this new reality. If she resisted the fact that something was wrong with her biotics, she’d panic, and in her current state she could _not_ afford panic.

What she needed was radical acceptance.

She took a shaky, pain laced breath. Okay. Embrace the reality. This was going to be challenging.

Of course, she’d faced challenges with her biotics in the past, had them kick her ass, simply fizzle and die or yield unexpected results, but she’d never had them try to rip her apart at the cellular level. Except that one time… not that long ago, when she’d got a taste of red sand.

Well, there was no red sand now. What was it, then? She didn’t dare experiment by trying to use her biotics again while so injured, so she concentrated on her breathing applying logic of the situation. Deep breath. Start at the beginning. Her biotics had been rock solid since she’d received her L3 implants over a decade ago. What had changed?

The obvious answer was that she was using stims again, a crutch she hadn’t relied upon since starting Specter training. But she’d taken stims with an L3 before, it had never affected her biotic control. So what had changed?

The short answer: a hell of a lot.

The truth was somewhere in the long answer, though. She leaned on the wall of the prefab and let her mind wander over the things that had been ruined and broken in the recent past. Her life was a wreck. She knew that. Back on Omega, fighting _crime_ on Omega. What a ridiculous premise for a new life-- returning to her old one and tipping the contents of it on its head. Lighting it on fire. Juvenile… yet so satisfying. She used to pick her battles. She used to have just one battle: slavers. She used to… but she’d fucked up, made a gamble on being a Specter, thinking that the return of investment of her time and effort would have somehow given her fight more legitimacy. It hadn’t and it wouldn’t, and she’d lost. Nihuls dead. Back unter Aria’s thumb, all because… Vakarian. Because some crazy turian with blue clan markings and a wicked smile had asked her to help. Oh, how history repeats itself-- different clan markings, this time, though. At least she liked the people she was working with-- a bunch of wrecks and fuckups just like her, trying to get by, make a dent, make a difference. And Vakarian, hottest mess of them all, with his cool-headed rage and and eye for an eye. Where had a turian even learned such concepts? She shook her head at the memory of Vakarian making Mirki'it inhale a massive dose of…

“Red sand.” She said it out loud and felt cold certainly spike through her.

Oh. Oh shit. She’d never touched the stuff before the unfortunate incident with the grenade, but it was a stimulant which messed with biotics. Since then her biotics had been off kilter, slightly stronger, but harder to let go of and with more neural spikes, not bad but just… different. She hadn’t worried about it. She hadn’t had the presence of mind to worry about it, but it had fucked with her amp. She hadn’t even bothered to check.Now, back on stims, albet not red sand, she was having issues.

Shepard was no scientist, but she sensed causation. Maybe correlation. What was the difference again? Okay… now that she’d sorted through one mess, it was time to get to practical matters.

She had to move. There were med supplies on her ship, and she needed to get off this damn planet, get some actual medical attention somewhere with actual people, preferably ones that wouldn’t try to murder, rob, or enslave her. Wait… something was missing. Her hand twitched to to the small of her back, where there was empty space and a lack of familiar weight. Memory flared… that bastard had taken her shotgun. Some kind of trophy? Sick fuck… at least wait for a girl to die before looting her. Son of a… no! She stifled a shaking sob. That had been a gift from Nihlus. It had been custom made for her. That gun was a fucking relic. Son of a _bitch!_

She began to speak out loud, an old habit from traveling alone which kept her calm. Her voice was hoarse, and her throat felt bruised. “Okay girly, pull yourself together. Shotgun is ostensibly lost. You’re gonna be lost too if you don’t get off this planet and get some help.”

She leaned on the wall for a while, waiting for the medigel to kick in. Once the bleeding slowed to a trickle she levered herself up, grabbing her discarded helmet, and began the slow walk. There was blood in the elevator-- her’s, on the wall, and it looked odd there, when no other blood had been spilled but over seventy miners and slaves were missing.

The elevator dragged down and she limplingly retraced her steps. Her pistol was lying innocently in the middle of the hall, and she retrieved it gratefully, wishing it was her shotgun. She stifled another panicked sob.

She had to stop several times and rest, breathing hard and favoring her shoulder with care. She dreaded the moment she’d have to release the seals on her armor and let the blood pour out. She could feel it sloshing around, wet and slick on her chest and her back. One quick stop in the security hub confirmed that the colony was again empty. She got a view of the tarmac and counted only the freighter and five private vessels. The sixth, the one the two Cerberus agents must have come in on, was gone. According to the footage she’d only been out for about twenty minutes-- long enough for those assholse to be anywhere in the system if they had a decent FTL drive, which she suspected they did. She downloaded the pitifully small bits of footage and wiped the console’s drives, disconnecting the cameras. She didn’t need anyone reviewing her pathetic limp to her ship. That’s when she remembered where she’d landed her ship, and cursed herself for her thoroughness-- she was parked on the top of a long, _really_ steep hill.

“Get to it, Shepard,” she told herself sternly. “They had you doing worse in commando training.” She donned her helmet at the airlock and headed back out into Presrop’s inhospitable atmosphere, resigned to the pain, and began the slow climb.

It took an hour. Not bad, all told. She’d had to rest half a dozen times and had fallen at least ten. Each time she fell she thought about just lying there and drifting off… but she shook it off, and hauled herself up, each step getting her closer to the _Jane_ until finally she found herself leaning against the ladder, trembling and panting from exertion and pain.

“Up we go,” she muttered. Climbing the ladder one handed proved to be another challenge, but she managed, and rolled into the airlock as soon as the security read her biometrics and opened the door. She lay on the floor as decontamination zipped over her prone form, resting while she could.

“Good job,” she congratulated herself. “No thing. You got this.”

Now that she was in her own space again, away from the empty colony, Shepard got to work. In the small bathroom she stripped, the blood dribbling from the inside of her armor as she unhooked the breastplate, just as she thought it would. The wound was now only seeping thanks to medigel, but she’d lost so much blood and it seemed to be going slightly septic. She was running a fever, and there was grit in the wound from her climb up the hill. She used sterile saline to flush both sides, hands shaking, and then packed the bleeding lesions with gauze and tape. There were two wounds: was a tiny hole in her abdomen, bleeding vaguely, and another below her ribs on her back that was more profuse. Oh goddess… she should be dead. He’d missed the important stuff, it seems. The sword-wielding bastard had _twisted_ the blade as he pulled it out, doing more damage to the tissue around the entry point of the wound in the process. She took some antibiotics first thing to fight off infection. After a moment's consideration she taped a saline IV to her arm and tried to find a vein in her hand with trembling fingers. It took five tries, pain from the needle feeling like an insect sting against the broader pain of her injuries.

Equally, perhaps more concerning than her blood loss was her concussion. She would not be able to sleep (again) and she was unfit to fly anything, let alone a starship. But she didn’t want to stay here and gamble on recovering enough to fly, let alone without a VI. She could do it…. she’d just need to book it to the relay… two days. No problem. So long as she didn’t have to fight anyone.

She’d take the gamble. It wasn’t really a question. Thus decided, she limped to the cabin to start the pre-flight checks, collapsing into her chair once she confirmed that her systems were flight ready. Space travel sucked without a VI. And when you were stabbed, and bleeding.

She sent a quick message to Ceirea, to be sent at the next comm buoy:

_Ceirea: Colony abandoned as of 5 solar days ago. Your agent, along with everyone else are gone. No leads, no survivors. Suspected abduction, actors and motivations unclear._

She didn’t mention Cerberus, didn’t want Ceirea getting involved with that particular brand of hell.

There was one more task she wanted to do before takeoff. Contingency plan. She didn’t want to die alone in some backwater galaxy with no one the wiser. At one point she might not have cared, but now? She stifled a laugh.

She started a recording on her omnitool. “This is Nym Shepard, recording from the _Plain Jane._

“I’m setting this vid to piggyback off of the first signal it encounters if my vitals fail. If I live, I’m deleting this. Should have made a dead man’s switch years ago, but… I didn’t have anyone to send it to.” She took a deep, pinched breath. “So. Vakarian, this is for you. Make sure you show Krul. I’m sorry. I’m a fuckup. I’m in the ass end of the Galaxy and I’m high as shit and my biotics are fucked. My ship’s VI is dead… and I got _stabbed_. By a sword. Can you believe it? And the guy stole my shotgun! I’m going to try and make a run for the Relay and hope like hell no pirates find me because I’ve got the mother of all of a concussions and can’t aim for shit right now.” She paused to catch her breath, coughing a little and wincing as her rib twinged. “So if I die…. Just know… I’m sorry I didn’t make it back to Omega.” She snorted, and tasted blood. Nosebleed again. She cast around the mess of her cabin and found a towel, mopping at her nose and kept talking. She must look like absolute shit. She knew there were bruises forming under her eyes, and blooming across her temple. Hell of a vid.

“I can’t believe I just said that. But I… miss Omega.” She paused a moment, noting the slight increase in her heart rate as she rode the pain. “It’s true.” She stared off for a moment, thinking about what to say, and suddenly felt sad. If she died... “I wonder how the squad is doing. Sensat probably thinks thinks I’ve run off and made a killing on the guns and none of you will see me again. Kinda hope I’ll lived long enough to prove her wrong. Want to see the look on her face. You’re probably murdering criminals left and right. You promised you’d save me some, but at this point I hope… I hope you get em all, Vakarian.” She sighed and tossed the towel aside. “And--- Aria? If you see this, because I know you have your ways... Fuck you.” She smiled as she said it, staring right into the lens of her omnitool camera. She waited a beat, and then turned off the camera.


	11. Trickshot

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> *squees quietly* Long chapter, but it all comes around in the end. Some dialogue lifted directly from the game, served up, with a twist. No smut yet though. Sorry.
> 
> Big thank you to the amazing @theAmazingBlue_J for beta reading.

**Shepard**

She pulled a thin foam bunk mattress into the cockpit so she could rest right by the controls, lying flat under a thermal blanket with her wounded side elevated, gently seeping thin fluids and a trickle of blood. She floated through space and entertained visitations of ghosts, living and dead.

“That’s my girl.” Aria’s hand stroked her cheek and wiped the blood away from her nose. She flinched at the contact. “Always pushing the limit.” Nym didn’t like people touching her cheek-- condescending, invasive gesture that made her flinch away. Aria laughed at her. She rolled away and ignored the indigo asari.

“Leave me alone,” she snapped. Aria sat and pulled her head into her lap, and started braiding her thick, wild hair into tight, painful rows along her scalp.

It wasn’t Aria. “Mom?” The woman’s face was half mist, blurred. She couldn’t remember what her mother looked like save kinked brown hair and... Couldn’t... Gray eyes crinkled at the corners. She was so beautiful… Nym reached out to touch her cheek and the woman jerked away. When she spoke, it was with Aria’s voice, and it made her sick but she still begged.

“Don’t go…”

A dead Specter sat in the co-pilot's seat, taloned feet kicked up on the dash. “So, you’re Aria’s girl. Might have been good to know before setting you up with the Council.”

“Nihlus, I’m sorry,” she whimpered.

“You’re such a liar, Shepard.” He didn’t sound angry-- more amused. “Fooled everyone. Even me. Especially yourself. And now you’re doing it again. Round two. How many rounds do you have in you, Shepard?” His words hurt. He was being cruel, so unlike him.

“You’re not real,” she tried to say. He wasn’t real. How could he be real with half his head missing, dripping gore onto her console? “You’re a specter. A ghost.”

“Word play isn’t going to save you, Nym. You always thought you were clever, but you’re just a fool. Sleep now,” he insisted. “I will watch over you.”

She wanted to sleep, so badly. If he was there, she could rest… could… she shifted and pain lanced through her gut.

“No,” she muttered. “Can’t sleep. I’ll die.”

Nihuls was on the mattress with her, touching her cheek. She could feel the weight of him depressing the foam. She could smell him, hot metallic sand and something like citrus. His personal scent, free from the smell of violence and sweat that usually coated them both. He smelled like _home_. Then he shifted, and she caught another scent, the smell of death rot overpowering. “Don’t,” she muttered.

“Let me help.” Soft, low. Insistent. It wasn’t Nihlus’ voice.

“Vakarian?” Her voice was a thin whine. “Thank the goddess.” Relief rushed through her, and she knew she’d be safe. Just like last time she’d been in medical crisis, Vakarian was there. She reached up for him, trying to touch his mandible, the clean line of his jaw adorned by those geometric blue markings and…

A sensor buzzed, loudly, right in her ear and she jerked, swearing -- _fuck!_ confused as reality shifted and she saw cockpit for what it was: her ship empty but for her, dying on a foam pad on the dirty floor. Pain shot through her side again, and she embraced it. There was no pain when she was hallucinating, so if she held on the the ache, maybe she’d stay awake long enough to hit the Relay. The bleeding started to seep through the gauze packed into the wound and she was... so thirsty. No matter how much water she drank she was never sated.

She rode on through the vacuum of space, and entertained more visitations.

Time passed-- two hours, or two days, two years. It was hard to tell. Another sensor wined it’s alarm. It was a welcome sound, and she hauled herself up, peered out the viewport. The Mass Relay was there… gleaming a fiery blue in the darkness around it…

She was almost home.

~~~

**Garrus**

“It’s no possible,” Weaver breathed from behind where Garrus was braced on the catwalk. “He’s not gonna pull it off.”

Garrus lined up his shot. He’d been bragging about how he could hit two people with one shot of his new Widow, and no one believed him. It was time for a field demonstration.

“Shut up and let him shoot,” Sidonis growled, annoyed as he watched the boss work his magic. He heard subvocal agreement from Sensat behind them both.

The chatter was ambient to Garrus. He was in his quiet place, floating gently on the certainly of a sniper. Breathe, sweep with the scope, watch the target. Wait for the moment.

Being a sniper taught him the rewards of patience, the satisfaction of finding that perfect moment to pull the trigger.

The Blue Varens were all dead, save for the three gangers who had been smart enough to stay out of the fighting: the batarian leader and his main enforcer, a thug who was cruel as he was enormous, and their human number-cruncher who seemed a bit sickly to Garrus’ predator senses. The rest of the base was strewn with dead gang members, and Archangel’s squad had retreated to the catwalks, lulling the leaders into a false sense of security. The three survivors looked around cautiously, mixed between terrified and triumphant that they yet lived.

Garrus waited for it. He was packing his Widow today, an extremely powerful rifle that would break the arm of any who fired it but a turian or a krogan. Garrus loved that rifle for a lot of reasons, but mostly it was because it made a hell of a noise as it fired, heavy slug tearing through the air.

He lined up the trick shot as the two gang leaders aligned themselves like planets, in a neat little row that the slug could travel down. His visor spat out the trig, and he smiled at the perfection of numbers, all angles and distance and velocity calculated and exacting. The bodyguard was in front, doing his job, and Garrus inhaled, held his breath and pulled the trigger.

The shot rang out like cannon.

The bodyguard dropped, shot through the head. The gang leader dropped a fraction of a second later, also shot through the head.

“Two for one special!” That was Weaver, whooping. Garrus leaned back feeling incredibly smug.

“Something is wrong with the little human,” Sensat observed, peering down from the catwalk. She was right… the book keeper was on his knees, clutching his chest and gasping.

“Vakarian…” Sidonis was stifling a laugh. “I think you gave him a heart attack.” The man had collapsed, purple faced and twitching.

“Huh, hilarious,” Garrus said lightly, observing the death throes with mild interest before turning away from the killing floor in favor of studying his favorite away team. The turians were both soldiers, and behaved as such: obedient, deadly and durable. Weaver was a mix of tech and biotics that was mind bending, but ze was more defensive and defense-stripping and didn’t do much real damage, though ze was nearly indestructible with that damn tech armor ze was always fiddling with. Sure, they were his favorite team, but Garrus felt like he was missing something. Someone. His crazy biotic soldier-- there was something about watching Shepard charge across the battlefield on a streak of blue, blasting anything in her path, that mad grin on her face when she landed, dark red hair flying... He felt a stab of annoyance that she wasn’t there to witness such a perfect trick shot. She appreciated a good spectacle.

Over two months, she’d been gone.

Opinions varied on Shepard’s whereabouts, and if they’d ever hear from her again. Sensat had been just shy of saying “I told you so” for weeks now. Truth was she was long overdue, and Garrus was torn between hoping she was just busy with her old contacts and vaguely worried about her-- worry that increased daily, each time with a touch more anger. Maybe she really had run off with the guns. Maybe she’d been captured, or Spirits forbid, killed. He wasn’t sure which was worse, her out there, in danger or lost or trapped, or her just not coming back for whatever reason she’d got into her head when he’d made it fairly clear that she was _needed._ He was undecided about the way his feelings were going to fall, hoping she’d come back and resolve his indecisives, and thus tried not to think about it. Much.

He was still dreaming about her, though. And, Spirits, _thinking_ about her when he was awake. He could _at least_ focus on the present moment.

And at present, Weaver was staring at him in something akin to awe, black eyes wide and shining with a wide grin across hir face. Hir voice was hushed, reverent. “That’s three for one, boss. You are a scary, scary man.” They descended the ladder one by one and Sensat and Sidonis went to go make sure the exit was clear. Looking a bit furtive, Weaver took out a cannister of armor paint, and shook it violently, the metal pea rattling loudly inside. Ze got to work, tagging the wall of the blood- and corpse-soaked room with a white symbol that Garrus didn’t know how to interpret-- his translator gave him nothing, but it didn’t look like ze was trying to draw something.

“What’s that, Weave?” He asked, raising a brow plate as he watched hir work. The symbol was a crude circle that had a stem and a curling tail facing towards the right.

⍺

Weaver grinned. “Funny story: Humans call this station Omega, which is the last letter in an ancient Earth alphabet called Greek. Symbolically speaking, Omega means ‘the end,’ or ‘the weakest.’ This,” ze pointed to the curious, looping symbol that took up half the wall, as far as ze could reach from floor to ceiling, “is the first letter in the Greek alphabet- Alpha. It means ‘the start,’ or ‘the strongest.’ Incidentally... it’s also the first letter in your name.” Weaver continued to write as ze spoke, arm sweeping in wide arcs as the paint can hissed, leaving white lines of alien writing in its wake, until Weaver finished and Garrus’ translator grabbed the whole word and parced it for him.

**⍺rch⍺ngel**

Archangel. He shook his head, snorting a laugh, and Weaver grinned. “You’ve spent a lot of time thinking about this.”

“That I have, Archangel. That I have.” Weaver said, looking smug as ze stepped back to admire hir work, “I always had a knack for poetry. Thanks for giving me the chance to practice my art.”

Garrus was turian, and turians didn’t really do… symbolism. They didn’t invest meaning into language and symbols the way humans did because subvocalization creating the meaning and emotionality instead. Words were tools, expression. Even clan markings were not symbolic so much as they were practical identifiers used simultaneously to unify insiders and identify outsiders. Turians subvocals created meaning, and thus turian poetry (for there _was_ turian poetry) was not made of language but of inflection. Letters themselves didn’t _mean things_ like “power” or “the end,” any more than a chipping a talon on a rock meant he had eaten _krikeh_ on a Tuesday seven years ago. He might of eaten _krikeh_ , but a rock would not tell him that he had or hadn’t, any more than a letter could mean something as specific as “the start,” or “the finish.” It made no sense that a letter in an alphabet could mean something other than what it was. And yet…. He could not fail to see the symmetry, the _poetry_ in Weaver’s mad art.

⍺ Alpha. The beginning. Archangel. Omega. The end. Ω

The implications were… staggering. Humans really knew how to make things messy. He dragged his eyes away from the tag of his name now drying on the wall in white paint.

“Is this what volus call marketing?” He quipped, covering his awe.

“Actually it’s called branding,” Weaver said. “I think I’ll be leaving more of these little alphas around. It’ll get the gangs all in a tizzie, knowing they ain’t safe when Archangel's out there.”

“Sure Weave, whatever you say.”

~~~

**Shepard**

She made the jump, and suddenly stars looked familiar again. Eventually Omega grew larger in the viewport, a malevolent orange rock trailing struts and towers like a space mushroom, jumping and blurring in her tired vision, and she’d never been so glad to see it. She wondered how many people looked at Omega and thought _safety_? When the _Plain Jane_ got into comm distance with Omega Shepard nearly cried from relief.

She linked up to the buoy and shot off an encrypted message to Mordin Solus, requesting medical attention. A lifetime ago, she would have sought help from Aria’s people, but she had a new doctor now. It was _vindicating,_ being able to return to Omega and not have to crawl to Aria for protection.

She was pale under her brown skin, dehydrated, and she definitely had an infection. But she wasn’t dead, the hallucinations had somewhat subsided as she stabilized from her concussion, and home was in sight. Her first instinct was to comm Vakarian, but her exhausted mind tossed that idea out the window. She didn’t want him to see her like this, all fucked up and half exsanguinated from a gut wound, her skull damn near split. He’d already dragged her to a hospital once, and if Shepard was conscious, she could get herself there by her own power.

Her comm buzzed and Mordin’s face bloomed in all it’s orange holographic glory. “Doctor Solus? This is Shepard. I’m in need of urgent medical care.” She sent him documentation of her injuries and her ETA. “And… something is seriously wrong with my biotics.”

He offered to meet her when her ship docked, but she refused. The private bay she kept the _Plain Jane_ in was controlled by Aria at least tertiarily and she didn’t need Mordin asking questions, or Aria taking note of visitors.

She called a cab and keyed the address to the clinic into the auto-nav before sighing back into the seat and letting a blessed VI take over. Cabs on Omega cost a fortune and were not the most reliable form of transport, but at this point it was the only way she could get anywhere.

She was half concious through the ride, hazy and mumbling to herlse.f Gozu was a welcome sight. It was home, more than any other place on Omega and she knew she’d be safe now. She’d have time to think… to breathe. And hopefully get some of the good stuff for the pain.

The cab stopped in front of the clinic and she tripped getting out of the cab, landing hard on her hands and knees. A passing vorcha stalked over, snarling as he kicked her with a bare, clawed foot to see how easy it would be to loot her, but then she heard a human voice chasing him off, and a nurse was kneeling beside her, waving a gun at the retreating vorcha before asking her if she was Shepard, and that Mordin would be there soon. Shepard rattled off her injuries as if in a trance: concussion, possible skull fracture, broken rib, stab wound, and something wrong with her biotics, and how she’d triaged herself in the few days it took to get to Omega.

The nurse was tutting as he hustled her gently to the back room-- the same room she’d woken up in after the red sand fiasco. The nurse gave her some pain meds and a saline drip, and Shepard relaxed into the feeling of lessening pain as she waited for Mordin, the feeling of safety growing warm in her chest, when a human man with a familiar face poked into the medbay.

There was a beat of silence.

“ _Shepard?”_ Butler said. His half bald pate was shining in the dim lights of the clinic. He looked good, alert and invigorated, and he had a long, half healed cut dragging a line down the side of his cheek. He’d been fighting.

“In the flesh… heh… what’s left of it,” she said, voice hoarse and sounded exhausted even to her own ears. Her rib hurt. She felt a rushing mix of anxiety and warmth at the sight of Butler. He was a good man, someone she could trust. She was safe now, really safe, away from the uncertainty of space and the paranoia of stims, but… she’d been gone a while. What if Archangel’s squad was angry with her, or didn’t trust her any more? She shook of the thought with a huff. Since when did she care what anyone thought? She didn’t owe anyone answers, but was afraid they’d demand them anyway. She knew who she was, and people could assume whatever they wished. Somehow though, she thought Butler would always assume the best intentions in anyone, until proven otherwise. She was good with him.

“You have _got_ to stop getting yourself almost killed,” he said, but he didn’t sound mad. He sounded almost exasperated, resigned. Shepard's sheepish grin increased by a few degrees. She was back on familiar turf now.

“Nice to see you too, Butler,” she said lightly as she was able, trying to disguise her wariness.

“May I come in?”

“Be my guest,” she said, gesturing imperiously, and then wincing as she twinged the wound in her gut.

Butler strode over to her bed, and before she could shoo him away, gentle fingers had captured her face and he was examining the brilliant bruise that covered her temple. She had two black eyes as well, and blood was crusted around her nostrils from the on and off nosebleeds from the head injury or the amp, she wasn’t sure which. He checked her pupils, which had stopped responding to light, and shook his head. He grabbed a clean towel and some soap and water and began to wash her face, starting with the bruised temple and moving on to her nose. If her hands weren’t shaking so much she’d have pushed him off and done it herself, but instead she submitted to his cleaning like a sullen kitten trapped by its mother.

“Linear fracture,” he muttered, and smoothed some medigel over the bruising on her skull once it was clean. Not much else he could do for it. He wet another cloth and handed it to her so she could wipe down her hands, neck and arms, which were covered in blood, sweat, and grime. “How did you almost die this time?”

“There was this space ninja… and he cracked me good with a sword hit. After he stabbed me with the sword, of course. A fucking sword! It was utterly medieval.” She was trying to be funny, but it took too much effort.

“Space ninja?” He sounded sceptical.

“Swear to the goddess.”

“Did you get him?”

“Nooooo,” she sighed tragically. “He got away. Ninjas are slippery.”

“Well, I’m glad you’re back.” Butler made her lie back on the gurney and pulled her hand away from the wound in her gut. She resisted, wincing.

“I’m going to prep you for Mordin,” he said. “Please.” She let her hand drop and he lifted up her shirt. “Did you treat this yourself?” She nodded, hissing as he cut away the gauze, leaving bits of fiber in the small, half clotted puncture on her stomach.

“Slight infection,” he said, sniffing the wound.

“I’ve been on antibiotics to control it. The entry point to the wound is on my back.” She gingerly rolled on her side and Butler moved around her to examine the other lesion.

“You cared for this well,” he said. “I don’t think you’ll need a blood transfusion… you’re body’s on it’s way to healing if we can get whatever is sliced open on the inside closed up.” As he did his prep, her mind started into overdrive-- if Butler knew she was here, he’d tell Vakarian, and she wouldn’t have time to restabilize before he demanded an audience like some king who wanted to discipline a disloyal subject. She wanted to return to Archangel on her own terms.

“Butler… I’d appreciate it if you didn’t tell anyone I’m here just yet. I want to talk to Mordin first. And… get healed up. I don’t want anyone to see me like this.”

Butler hesitated.

“Please,” she managed. He studied her, and after a moment he nodded in agreement. She gave him a relieved smile and whispered thanks, and he grunted, unapproving, before leaving her alone to wait for Mordin.

The next few hours passed in a blur of medical attention. Mordin breezed in, talking a mile a minute about different triage methods used in the field and how she was very lucky because the blade had slipped just below her kidney and she would have died in twenty minutes from hemorrhage and poisoned blood. As it was, her intestine had been nicked and was slowly leaking toxins, causing infection. Mordin did some minor surgery with some lasers to close the internal wounds, and then slathered her with medigel and prescribed rest and relaxation for her body and mind, and some meds for the pain in her gut and head.

“Mentioned something is wrong with your biotics?” Mordin quipped at last, as she rested and sipped on some warm broth Butler had brought her. “Residual effects from red sand, perhaps? Odd symptoms or warning signs not reported? May be neural decay or…” He took a sharp breath, “Ah! Neural rejection of amp may be possible, given nose bleeds and pain symptoms. Main question is why symptoms did not manifest shortly after red sand exposure. Why now and not two months ago?”

Shepard’s mouth twisted slightly. “I’ve been using stims out in the field.” “Ah,” Mordin said, black eyes considering her with a few rapid blinks. “Drug use vital information, do not withhold. When was the last use of stimulants?”

“First time was a week ago, last dose was two days ago-- but two days the first time I’d used my biotics while on the stims. That’s when the problem really started. Is there anything you can do?” She asked, eyes fixed on the old salarian.

“Testing required,” he said. “Gentitist, not neurologist, but basis of main inquiry remain similar. Must wait for healing of body before initiating any experimentation. Would not want to cause… further complications. Will take initial scans to corroborate data.” Mordin hit a few buttons on his omnitool and scanned her and her amp, humming under his breath.

After the urgent medical matters were seen to, Mordin rushed off to deal with some other crisis and Butler returned. He sat with her a while in companionable silence, and Shepard was grateful not to be alone as her body adjusted to the meds, the surgery, and comedown from her adrenaline high. Not for the first time she thought that Butler should be sainted.

“Archangel has a new base,” he said finally. He’d clearly been stewing over revealing it or not, and had made his decision, for whatever reason, to tell her.

“Really?” She perked up with interest. That was excellent news. Holding meetings in Vakairan’s tiny motel room had been distinctly depressing, and she imagined he was still on his recruiting crusade. They would need more space for training and expansion. He probably didn’t even need her anymore, with all the hopeless heroes she imagined were singing up to join her cause. “Where’s it located?”

“I’ll take you there myself,” he said simply.

She quirked her mouth, huffing a laugh. “Don’t trust me enough to give out the address?”

“Archangel’s been pretty cagey this past month. He’s going to want to know where you’ve been. I’d like to bring you there, and I’ll keep your return quite until then. We’ve all been… pretty worried, and I don’t want him to do anything stupid that he’d regret.” The way he hesitated made it seem like he wasn’t saying what he wanted to.

“Stupid like what? Beat me up?”

“Like not tell you where the base is at. Not realized that he damn well needs you, your knowledge of Omega. Sensat is convinced you're a traitor. He doesn't believe it… but I’d liketo surprise him so he doesn't over think things. He’s got a habit of doing that.”

“I like it,” she said. She imagined the look on Vakarian’s face, mandibles twitching and shocked as she sauntered into his new base and made herself at home. Maybe she’d even go rummage through the fridge, looking for a beer while he gaped at her. “Thanks for this Butler. I’m not really used to having people around who might worry about me.”

“Get used to it, Shepard,” he said locking his eyes on her. “We were hoping we could keep you and you just never came back...”

She dropped her eyes as a lance of guilt shot through her. It would be a nice pipe dream, thinking that Archangel (the squad, not the man, of course) had been lost without her, but it just wasn’t true. Butler bringing her back to the base without permission was a clear power move, one that showed how tenuous her place in the squad really was. “I’m… sorry. One thing lead to another with an old contact. I did some favors for her and the I got stabbed by the space ninja. You can forgive the delays, I hope.”

“Just this once,” Butler replied, smiling. “Let me know when you’re feeling up to going to the base, and I’ll take you.”

“Professor?” There was another familiar voice coming from the hall. “I’m here for the good stuff!”

“Shit, is that Weaver?” Shepard shrank back, and Butler swore. If Weaver saw Shepard, their sneak attack on Vakarian would be blown wide open. Weaver couldn’t keep a secret for shit.

Butler hopped up and went to meet Weaver before ze could pop into the med bay on hir hunt for the Professor. Their muffled voices sounded loud enough that Shepard could just hear their words.

“Mordin!”

And a few moments later Mordin’s rapid fire speech floated through the half closed door. “Making progress with next iteration of symptom management. Antihistamines functioning as intended to combat more severe reactions upon greater fluid ingestion. Need more tissue samples to confirm long term viability.”

 _Fluid ingestion? Samples?_ Shepard suddenly got the feeling she shouldn’t be hearing this.

“I’ll give you whatever you need, if it means I can give my girlfriend head,” Weaver said cheerfully, and Shepard heard Butler cough.

Oh! Shepard smirked to herself. Interesting, but totally none of her business.

Shepard lay back and allowed her mind to drift from the tumble of new information she hadn’t had time to process just yet. She would need to keep investigating Cerberus and would keep an eye out for more missing colonies and miners. She needed to put pressure on Aria about a few bits of intel that she felt were being kept from her. She needed to fix her biotics. She needed to… hm… did Weaver say ze wanted to give Sensat head? She wondered absently if turians even had oral sex. Their mouths didn’t seem very hospitable to delicate things like cuts or cocks...

She laughed at herself, staring up into the red gloom of the clinic, the light warm and dim, refracting against the bulkhead. After two months of freedom fighting and doing favors, of abductions, and getting stabbed by human a supremacist terrorist space ninja, with her biotics on the fritz, and her mind had wandered to turian oral sex practices?

It was definitely time to let her exhausted body drift into sleep. This time, with no hallucnations.

~~~

**Garrus**

The new shuttle touched down in the garage next to Shepard ancient hunk of junk-- untouched since her departure. Garrus would not let anyone use her shuttle-- she’d kill him if something happened to it, so it was in storage, waiting for her return. Butler hopped out of the rear door of their active shuttle, whistling as he unbuckled his helmet. They had all taken to hiding their faces on missions. Archangel was getting notorious, after all, and it was better to remain anonymous. He was in a cheerful mood for some reason. “I’ve got to head out. Will you be here in an hour?”

“I imagine so. Why? Something need my attention?” Butler shook his head and winked at him before heading upstairs, humming. Humans were weird. Didn’t a wink mean a secret? Something private, shared? “What’s with Butler?” Garrus asked Sidonis, who shook his head, hummed a “don’t care” with his sub vocals, and stalked off to find something to eat.

“Vakarian,” Sensat was lingering at the hood of the shuttle, mandibles tight to her jaw. “Can we talk?” “Sure, if you don’t mind me cleaning up while we do it.” Garrus started towards the weapons bench and series of lockers along the side wall and started to stow his gear.

Sensat kept pace, unclipping her own weapons and going over them carefully, even as the words tumbled out of her in a mad rush.

“We’ve been doing well,” she said. “Better than well-- made a huge dent in the Blue Suns this past month.” Garrus didn’t look at her as he began to release the seals on his armor, stripping down so he could clean the gore that splattered it. It had been an up close fight today.

“I agree,” he said evenly, waiting for her to get to the point.

“So, I was wondering… when are we going after Tarak?”

Garrus placed his rifle on the weapons bench and turned to Sensat, fixing her with a curious stare. “We’re nowhere near ready to go after Tarak,” he said flatly.

“Why not? We’ve got him half crazy with all the shipments he’s lost in the past two months. I bet his security is so tight it’s ready to snap. He’s paranoid.”

“He still runs at least five districts. There’s no way we can get to him without it being a blood bath. We need to get to him right where he lives, where he’s not expecting it, not out in the station somewhere where he’ll have half his company watching him. Keep working on it, look at it from different angles. Find out where he lives, where he works, where he plays. Come up with some scenarios, and when you’re ready, and once we’ve made more of a dent in his forces, we can can go over them.”

Sensat was silent, hed dipped. She was turian Hierarchy born and bred, and her superior officer had just given her orders. She’d take them like a bitter pill, but do as he said.

“Yes sir,” she ground out, military stiff, before slamming her locker shut and storming upstairs.

Sensat was replaced by Melenis, who was waiting for him outside the shuttle hangar.

“Hello Archangel,” she said softly, the picture of Drell poise. She only ever called him Archangel. “Would you have time to partake in some hand-to-hand training?” She was wearing workout clothing, a high collared shirt protecting her frill, and loose, formless pants that billowed around her knees before coming in tight to her calves.

“That would be welcome right now,” he said. “You know I always vaguely feel like punching things.”

Melenis never responded to his humor with more than a gracious nod of her head, and Garrus got another wave of missing Shepard. She’d have shot back some smartass reply about how he was slowly running out of punching bags, seeing as he killed them all, or tossed him that look, funny human features twisted in a combination of amused and exasperated. “Wry,” Butler had called it.

Melanis led him to the area in the basement that they had set up for hand to hand sparring. Mats were laid out, medigel, towels, and water were on hand. Free of his armor, Garrus removed the top half of his under suit, so only his padded leggings remained.

They both stretched before facing off. Garrus was nearly a foot and a half taller than the drell who stood just over five feet tall. He was not fooled by her small stature, however-- the tiny woman was fast and vicious, and never gave anything away until it was too late. Of course, Garrus used his own speed and power to his advantage and their matches were evenly split between wins for either of them, and a handful of draws.

They began to circle each other slowly. Garrus was the one who initiated, and they traded friendly blows, Melenis deflecting and avoiding, and Garrus allowing her to land hits on his arms and ribs, while protecting his waist and stomach.

He feinted a punch that turned into an elbow jab, and Melenis was again deflecting, suddenly not where he elbow landed. He staggered slightly and recovered, and they danced around to begin again. Melenis got another hit in, this time at his back where he wasn’t quite guarding his lower plates. He wasn’t trying to fight viciously with her or bring his natural predation senses to the fore-- this was about finesse, about reading his opponent and turning their style against them. Commander Fisher had taught him that everyone had something to teach, and fineness was what what was Garrus was learning from Melenis.

He set himself up to be exactly where Melenis expected him to be, one foot sliding behind so he could pivot away at the last, when he heard a laugh that sent a jolt through him, enough to unbalance his step. His head twisted slightly without meaning to and he caught a flash of dark red hair, and white teeth-- a human with brown skin and a wicked smile was seated on a crate by the door, watching. Butler leaned on the door frame, speaking quietly.

Shepard? She was back! Butler must have brought her to the base and-- Pain erupted in his knee and he took a bad step, staggering slightly. He recovered as Melenis spun away like she was dancing. Garrus growed. He’d had enough with finesse for the time being. In one brutal rush forward, he overpowered Melenis’ next move, dropping her to the floor with a wump, and called the match.

“Sorry Melenis.”

“I see Shepard has returned and it is perhaps rude for us to continue our sparring. Let us go greet her.” Garrus offered her a hand up and the drell took it gracefully, settling her clothes and smoothing her frill as they turned and went to greet the wayward biotic. Garrus was suddenly aware that he wore only leggings, and hastily grabbed the top half of his undersuit, struggling back into it as he went.

Shepard hopped off the crate, and Garrus noticed she was favoring her right side as she moved. Her right temple was crowned by a days old bruise which spanned a magnificent spectrum of colors, from blue to a greenish yellow, and she had two nearly healed black eyes-- head injury. A bad one. She smelled like antiseptic and pain.

They stared at each other, and she smiled uncertainly. In that moment he couldn’t think of a damn thing to say to her.

“Hello Shepard,” Melenis said, and Shepard’s eyes darted from Garrus to the drell who was taking one of the human’s hand gently in her own two. Shepard squeezed, and smiled, and said something gently that Garrus didn’t catch, before her cool gaze turned back to him. Butler and Melenis exchanged a look before melting away without another word. Garrus thought Butler looked smug.

“Hey,” she said lightly, looking somewhat apprehensive. He thought there was an attempt at a smile on her lips, but it faded as he stared at her.

“‘Hey?’” He said, his sub vocals cracking a bit. “It’s been two months, and all you have to say, ‘hey’?”

“Well, you weren’t saying anything.” She shot back, crossing her arms. He felt her defenses go up like a wall, but he didn’t care. Now that she was in front of him, bruised and injured, he knew how he felt about her absence. He was angry. At her.

“What happened?”

She glared at him. “To the guns? No doubt Sensat thinks I really did see you out, but never fear. They were delivered, and then my contact asked me to do some favors for her. Needed someone with operational expertise. Then she asked me to look for a missing person on my way back to Omega, and I ran into some trouble on the way. I told you that might happen.”

Spirits, she wasn’t giving him anything! “I don’t care about the guns, Shepard.” _I care about you. Spirits._ “I was asking about your face. It looks like maybe you tried to fight a wall, and the wall won.”

“It was…” she pulled a face. “A sword. I tried to fight a sword. With my body.” She pulled up the hem of a loose white shirt. He realized suddenly she was wearing civs and not armor. It was the first time he’d seen her in anything but her commando getup or that hip-hugging jumpsuit she’d worn on their first mission together. He watched with growing alarm as she lifted the hem of her shirt to reveal a long torso that curved into full hips, defined in a ripple of muscle across her abdomen and a definite v of her hip bones that disappeared down below the band of her baggy pants.

 _Spirits, woman!_ Under normal circumstance seeing a human’s waist wouldn’t have made him blink-- Human waists didn’t have the same cultural taboos against such displays, not like a turian’s waist might have when shown in such direct manner, but it was _her_ waist, and he’d been having dreams about wrapping his hands around her just at the dip where her hips flared out, and it was bordering on obscene-- _explicit_ to see it so casually displayed before him. He hated himself as he felt his cock stirring.

Spirits, woman! If only she’d never grabbed _his_ waist that drunken night, maybe he wouldn’t be shifting his plates right about now.

Was he supposed to be looking at something? She was pointing to the cleanly dressed wound on her front, before twisting (Spirits, she was _flexible_ ) to show him the matching one on her back. That was a whole other typography his eyes didn’t have time to map before the shirt was back around her hips.

“Nothing like looking down to see an inch of steel sticking out of your gut,” she said with a sigh.

“You got stabbed… in the back?” His sub vocals wined, a low warning rumble of impending anger. The sight of that wound, the image of a blade stabbing through her gut was _pissing_ him off. The combination of anger and arousal was… not unpleasant, and his fists clenched. Spirits, talking to her without her having sub vocals or being able to understand his was like having a conversation with someone who only heard every other word. If she’d been turian she would have had him up against a wall with the rest of his clothes off already-- that or flatly turned him down. He wouldn’t even have had to ask. She’d just be able to hear it in his voice.

This was not going well.

“Yeah, can you believe it? I mean who uses a sword anymore?”

He huffed in frustration at her obliviousness. Was she even taking this seriously? She’s been _missing_ _for a month_ and then shows up, looking half dead and she was just cracking _jokes_? _Isn’t that what you like about her, Vakarian?_ _Her jokes. Her inability to take you seriously. The way she just laughs everything off and runs right back into hell, right into your scope._ “Shepard, we need to talk--”

“Uh oh. Are you about to break up with me?” She was wearing a _shit_ eating grin, and he wanted to _shake her._

“Will you please take this seriously? For just one Spirits-blessed moment, let me talk.”

Her arms crossed her chest and she braced her feet. That was a defensive posture and her smile slipped. “About what Vakarian? Are you upset I abandoned your little crusade?” Her humor dropped in an instant. “I’m a goddamn freelancer. This is what I do. I travel. I disappear. I show up again like a bad penny. I do dangerous shit out in the Traverse and the Terminus that no one else is able to to... because… I’ve been trained to do it since… since forever! I wasn’t given a choice.” She threw up her hands in disgust. “I’m not part of your little team-- I can’t be part of it. I’d love nothing more than to say fuck it to the past decade of my life and rip through Omega like there wasn’t a bigger picture out there, but there is, and I can’t ignore it. Maybe you should try looking beyond Omega too.” He stared at her, quelled by her sudden rage and her edging around some kind of confession of a past, but at her accusation his gut wrenched, echoing things he’d thought in those sleepless moments after he dreamed of Reapers and Naksea, of Liara and Fisher and of Tali...

“You have no idea,” he said quietly. “No idea what hell I’ve been through. What bigger pictures I’ve seen in the past two years. And how little there is that I can do to fight it.”

Shepard was staring at him with her gray eyes blazing. “Good! Then we both have no idea! We can just stay in our own personal hells and stew about it privately. I won’t presume to know shit about you, and don’t you dare speculate about me.”

“All I’ve been speculating about this past month is if you’ve been killed, or if you just couldn’t bother to keep in touch!” _And what she’d feel like in his arms, under his hands, what human kissing was like, what heat..._ but that was _not_ something he’d say aloud.

“I told you I was going comm dark,” she said quietly.

“For a month. It’s been over two.”

“Well, I’m here now, aren’t I? And the guns are in the hands of some very pissed off ex-slaves, and I got some good work done for an old friend and….” They stared at each other intently for a few moments. When she spoke again, her voice was smaller, tentative. “And... you still want to work together, right?”

He sighed, closing his eyes for a moment. Damn it but this woman confused him. “Of course I do. Your absence was noted, and significant. We _missed you,_ Shepard. Spirits, I missed you.” He’d said it out loud and it rung with truth. You’re part of this squad and in some ways that makes me responsible for your safety, for your continued survival, whether you like it or not.”

She stiffened a little. “Can we compromise here, Vakarian? I can’t promise I’m not going to have to run off again at a moment’s notice.”

“I can’t promise I’m not going to feel responsible for you while you’re working for me,” he said carefully. “Whether you’re on this station or not.”

“So. Compromise. When I’m here, I’m yours.” He felt a peculiar rush in his gut at those words, but he knew she meant she belonged to Archangel, to the squad, and not Garrus and that it was belonging in a professional sense, not an intimate one. Intimate? Hell, she didn’t even know his given name. He didn’t know her’s either, come to think of it-- or maybe Shepard was her given name? He would have to look up human naming conventions later. She wasn’t done yet, and barreled on, oblivious to is thoughts. “But if I need to go, I go, no questions asked. No expectations.”

“Will you at least comm me when you’re on your way back? I really don’t like it when a member of my squad shows up unannounced and half dead. Keep me in the loop, at least a little.”

“I don’t know. I’m concerned about people knowing my movements. Omega isn’t the safest place for people like me, and I like a certain anonymity.”

“You trust Krul, right? I’ll have him set up some more encryption on our comm connection, okay?”

She sighed, relaxing slightly. “Okay…”

“Done,” he growled. He’d take it and run as far as she’d let him. He was not letting her slip away into some self destructive ‘lone warrior’ fantasy. Not a chance. He was really glad she couldn’t parse sub vocals, because the whine in his had been a lot closer to concerned lover or family member than it had been to commander arguing with subordinate, the way he should have sounded. Then again, if she’d been his subordinate, they wouldn’t have been arguing at all. If he was her commander she’d actually listen to him. Did that make him a failure as a leader?

She hopped back up on her crate, winching slightly, but her legs were swinging. “Good gods, but you are _tense,_ Vakarian. Don’t you do anything to blow off steam?”

“‘Blow steam?’” he said, curious as the conversation shifted and the idiom didn’t translate.

“Release pressure. You know, _relax_? This Archangel thing’s got you all wound up.” She had that shit eating grin back. Was she _teasing_ him?

He huffed a laugh. “Turians are just kind of wired that way,” he said lightly. “I think we blow off steam a bit differently than humans.”

“Oh? And how do turans blow off steam?” she said, raising an eyebrow, her grin fading into a smirk.

“With competitive violence,” he drawled. She laughed, and he relaxed fully, assured that they weren’t going to continue fighting, though he was still _annoyed_ with her. And slightly dazed that she was sitting on a crate, smirking at him. _Two months_ , he thought, trying not to let his anger flare again.

“You mean dueling and feats of strength or something? This galaxy is so medieval. Should have had you with me to deal with sword guy.”

“Damn right you should have,” he growled, before clearing his throat. “Anyway, all Turians have compulsory public service for five years, from the age of majority. Those of us who serve in the military are pretty regulated, and everyone’s in close quarters. To prevent random breakouts of unsanctioned violence, competition and sparring are actually encouraged, and closely supervised.”

“Uh huh,” she said, waiting for him to go on.

“Yeah…” A memory came unbidden, and he plunged onward without meaning to. She’d got him spun right around, and he was fucking _babbling_. “I remember on this one cruise-- trying to oust some barbarian pirates, this recon scout and I had been at each other’s throats. She was _infuriating,_ so arrogant and disrespectful-- we were always stepping on each other’s talons. Anyway, we decided to work it out in the ring.”

“I assume she kicked your ass? I saw that little sparr you just had with Melenis… So easily distracted.” The shit eating grin was back, and he chose to ignore it.

“Actually, we were two of the top ranked hand to hand specialists on the ship. I had reach, but she had flexibility.” Shepard huffed a laugh. “That so? Then how come you hide behind that sniper rifle all the time?”

“Because I’m an even better shot than I am fighting unarmed,” he growled, and she subsided into silence and he realized with a start she was waiting for him to continue his story. He went on, his reluctance abating. Maybe his stupid little story would prompt some kind of reaction… maybe it might… what? Open a door? Not even. Maybe indicate that the door even existed in the first place. He could at least gauge her reaction. “Anyway, the fight was brutal. After nine rounds, the ref called the match. There were a lot of unhappy betters in the training room. We… uh, ended up holding a tiebreaker in her quarters later. I had reach, and she had flexibility. More than one way to work off stress I guess.”

Shepard barked a laugh. “Damn, Vakarian. Are you saying you need to get laid?”

 _Spirits, yes._ He really did need some relief. Problem was, his tastes seemed to have changed. He’d never been into humans before, but he was _into_ her.

“My options are shockingly limited,” he said casually. “Seems being a vigilante isn’t much of a turnon for the turians of Omega.”

“What about Sensat? Turians have casual sex all the time. Maybe Weaver would share,” she shot back. Was she trying to help him get laid?

“Uh… Shepard? Sensat is gay.”

“Ah. Too much to hope she went all ways.” Shepard said, looking slightly defeated. A look came in her eye. “What about Sidonis?”

“Straight,” he shot back. So very straight. Also way too uptight, even if he wasn’t only interested in women. Was Shepard trying to see if he was attracted to men, or had she just assumed that Garrus was not himself straight? “And not my type.”

She smirked, and he let her draw her own conclusions.

“Well,” she said finally. “Maybe I could help you blow off some steam.” Her smile was crooked as his mandibles flared and he took an involuntary half step forward.

“Didn’t think you’d be up for sparring, Shepard,” he said lightly while inside his guts were screaming at him to _lock it down_.

“My flexibility is pretty limited with a broken rib and a gut wound. But there _are_ other things we’re both good at. Maybe we could do some sharpshooting? I know a place with some great views.”

“Your aim _could_ use some practice,” he drawled as his mind scrambled. She wasn’t-- no, that had clearly not been an offer for sex. Just some friendly competitive violence. He’d take it. After two months without, he’d take any time with her that she was offering. “You know, I’d love to see you try and use a sniper rifle.”

“Done,” she said hopping off the crate. “There’s something humans like to do when they blow off steam.”

“What’s that?”

“Drink,” she said. “Do try to bring some booze.” Her storm-dark eyes took in the room. “Now that we’re all caught up, mind giving me a goddamn tour so I can decide if I should be impressed with your new base or not?”

Garrus chuckled, his mind racing even as he pretended coolness. “Yeah, check out the garage first.”

She poked her head in and made a yelp of glee. “My shuttle!”

Garrus grinned, as he drew her up the stairs to show her the rest of the base. He was left slightly dizzy from the rapid succession of gear shifts-- from surprise at her return, to anger at her condition and her radio silence, triumph at their “compromise,” to… what was that feeling in his chest as they came around from arguing to… flirting? Hope. It was hope.

He had some planning to do.


	12. Anatomy Lessons

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I wrote a chapter for this! So sorry for the long wait and thank you for leaving comments and encouragements in my absence! I started teaching in March and I highly suggest you go find a teacher and hug them or buy them flowers or something because HOOBOY does teaching take a lot of time and energy.
> 
> I also got sucked in to Fallout 4 harddd, but I can never leave my OTP for long... so, here, without further adue... is some smut. And some feelings. And some freaking out and not talking about feelings. And stuff. 
> 
> A huge thanks to the amazing @theAmazingBlue_J for beat reading THREE DRAFTS of this and talking through some issues I was having with characterization. This was a really hard chapter for me to write for many reasons (Nym is challenging, lemme tell ya) and I'm finally fairly happy with it. I hope things come more easily now that it's out of the way and I'll update more regularly, especially after the middle of June when the quarter is over. Thanks for your patience. <3

_I'm testing all circuits to see if they all work_  
_I'm throwing on all switches to see which ones don't work_  
_Wish that I could leave my room tonight_  
_The fast attack on my compressor's way too bright._  
_Think I got the threshold on too tight._  
_Just restart and hope that everything will be alright._

_-"Offline P.K."  Pinback_

**Shepard**

Shepard fell back into Omega life with a will. She didn’t bother healing past the tertiary period of not wanting to rip open her gut wound-- just a day of rest and she was back to Archangel’s new base.

The only problem was that her biotics were unstable. They were a mess, fine one day and non-existent the next, only to flare at odd times, to give her nosebleeds and headaches, so while she could use them somewhat safely when not under stress, combat was not an option. It was making her cagey.

And oh, she missed her shotgun. Shepard’s new darknet project was to find out who the hell the space ninja guy was so she could hunt him down and get her gun back, hopefully shooting him in the face with it in the process.

“I’m trying a new thing,” she said to Weaver and Ripper when they had asked why the hell she wasn’t flinging herself around the battlefield like a madwoman anymore. “Biotics make it too easy. Since I lost my shotgun I thought I’d try out a different way of wreaking havoc.” And so she did, adopting a machine gun and playing midfield lawnmower any time they took down mercs.

Vakarian was the only one who knew her biotics were on the fritz, and he kept closed mouthed while Dr. Solus did his testing, claiming that they were “in training.”

Seeing Sensat again was the worst part of her homecoming, at least in terms of negative reactions. The turian wouldn’t speak to her-- had thrown an absolute fit when she’d learned Shepard had not only been to the base, but was allowed complete autonomy. Sensat was still convinced she was… what? A double agent? A true solo merc, only out for herself? Shepard was amused, Weaver shrugged and apologized, and Vakarian had growled at Sensat and sent her out for a week’s worth of recon so she could cool off.

And despite her change in combat style, Vakarian kept Shepard close. He pulled her for every opp once he was sure she was up for it. It felt… good, knowing he wasn’t just keeping her around for her biotics.

Besides, what else was she going to do? Screw around on the undernet, chasing her paranoia and running errands for Aria when she got bored?

Vakarian was better.

They were also actually learning from each other. She’d set up a shooting rage on the roof of her hangar, away from the prying eyes of Base, and the two for them had weekly target practice and bull sessions that would go on for hours, talking and shooting until the irregular power fluctuations that passed as “night” on Omega made it too dangerous to keep shooting. It was her promised “blowing off steam” session, and besides the intel gathering and combat, which had them working together daily, Shepard looked forward to their private time together every week-- he brought booze and food and she set up the range with a different challenge every week.

Of course, Vakarian didn't know they were hanging out about three stories above Shepard’s room, and the thought of having him so close to her inner sanctum was… messing with her. She wondered each time they went shooting if tonight would be the night she would tell him-- invite him downstairs and… Nope! She let other, less ridiculous thoughts slide to the fore of her mind.

It was their third such session, and Vakarian was on his belly and Shepard stood with a pile of bottles at her feet, both armed with sniper rifles and grins.

Her biotics were stable enough to use for simple tasks today, and she was using it as a sling to launch their targets out over the edge of the building. She let one fly in a halo of blue and swung the rifle up to her shoulder, tracking the bottle and took her shot. A bottle shattered, and Shepard let out a sharp “ha!” and turned to Vakarian, who was doing his best not to look impressed from his spot on the floor.

“Not bad,” he rumbled. “Launch three.” She obliged with a crack of blue, and he took aim and fired off three quick shots, each shattering a bottle.

“Showoff,” she said.

“You're getting better. I don’t think we’ll ever made a sniper out of you, but you can at least handle a rifle.”

“Please Vakarian. I’ve been handling rifles since I was seven,” she shot back, shoving the borrowed gun at him and flopped on to her back to stare into the orange glow of the Omega skyline. Streams of shuttles and small ships zipped in and out of other docking bays above them, but things felt bright and still out on the roof, enclosed by taller buildings on three sides. A row of bottles, now mostly shattered, were set up on a ledge at 100 yards, as well as a few mannequins dressed in mismatched armor crudely painted with Blue Suns, Eclipse, and Blood Pack logos.

Shepard felt vaguely devious in that moment, knowing that Vakarian was so close to her home, and had no idea. They laid side by side heads turned to each other, grinning like idiots. The moment lingered and then Vakarian grunted and hoisted himself upright, no easy feat for six and a half foot of turian in heavy armor, before padding off to the corner where they kept their gear. Vakarian was rummaging through a bag, and Shepard propped herself on elbows to watch with interest. “What’cha got today, big guy?”

“Refreshments. Best I could afford on a vigilante's salary.” She hmm’d skeptically. “Don’t worry, the wine is dual-chirality, and there's some levo junk food in there too. Chocolate I think. Just don’t eat the _chapteth_ and you’ll be fine.”

“You brought me chocolate?” Her eyes went wide, and she grinned, sitting up. Where had he even _found_ chocolate on Omega?

“Is that a problem?” He looked suddenly nervous, mandibles flickering as he set down his own rifle.

“No! It’s just… something humans give each other when they uh… like each other. You know, like, romantically. Or sexually. Courting behavior. Humans and chocolate have a long and sordid history.”

Her lips twitched as she tried to gauge his reaction, but he didn’t so much as flick a mandible.

“Oh. When turians give friends something to eat it’s usually because they think they’re going to be hungry. Especially when that friend is a human with fucked up biotics who eats pretty much constantly. I can give it to another human if you prefer. Butler suggested it, anyway.”

“Don’t you dare. Do you know how rare chocolate is on Omega? That stuff is gold.”

He dug into the cloth bag and pulled out a small slab of chocolate wrapped in foil, sauntered over and pressed it into her hands. Shepard peeled back a corner and inspected the contents. The chocolate was heavy and dark, and she snapped off a little piece to taste it. Her eyes closed in bliss as she let it melt on her tongue. It was bitter and secretive, and she let the flavors play out. It tasted like sin. A thought intruded on the moment, and she cracked her eye open.

“Wait… Butler suggested it?” Vakarian was watching her, an odd look on his face. He jumped slightly and then dipped his head again, with a little cough.

“Yeah. I mentioned we were getting together to go shooting again and he has some chocolate and said I should give it to you.” Garrus shrugged, and he was so sweet it nearly killed her.

“That’s… adorable?” she said, peering up at him, her face tight with trying to keep from splitting in half with a grin. “Though technically Butler gave me chocolate. You were just a proxy.” She hummed, considering. “What would people say if they knew Archangel was a big softy?”

“Consider the chocolate a bribe to keep your mouth shut.” “Consider me bribed.” She broke off another little piece and popped it in her mouth.

“I don’t know if chocolate is going to work on Butler, though, and I’m pretty sure he knows what a pushover you are now, too.” His eyes narrowed but before they could start bickering she waved her hand. “Didn’t you say something about wine?”

She stood as Vakarian sauntered over and popped a human drinking glass into her hands. The smell of cheap wine hit her nose and she grinned, watching him sip his own wine from a flute shaped glass made for turian mouths. His mandibles went in tight, and she caught the blue flash of tongue against sharp, exposed teeth, tasting it.

She took a tentative sip and was met with the taste of wine-but-not, the dual chirality not doing it any favours. “Weird,” she said, and took another sip.

“Best I could afford on a vigilante's salary,” he said, looking not at all sorry.

“That’s total bull,” she shot back, looking up. “I saw the accounts yesterday. The amount of credits you’re pulling in is insane.”

“I don’t see any of it, you know,” he said, taking another sip. “It all goes back into keep the base running and buying all the expensive gear you freaks claim to need.”

“Hey, if we’re freaks, you’re the king, all right?”

“All right,” he said and she bumped his shoulder with her own. He chuckled and she grinned up at him like an idiot, making Vakarian shift from foot to foot. She shifted away and suddenly became very interested in her wine.

“Want to spar?” She said suddenly. The words fell out easily enough, but she hadn’t really thought about them before she’d spoken. Now that she had, they sounded… stupid.

“Didn’t think you’d be up to sparring,” he said cautiously, those predator’s eyes honing in on her face. She smiled, feeling like he could use a good teasing for that story he’d told back at Base about his nine round sparring match that had ended in bed.

“I thought we could test out your reach, and my flexibility.” She was teasing him now, her tone cheerful.

Vakarian peered into his glass, thoughtful. “That depends. What are the parameters?”

“Oh, let’s see. Sudden death. Winner takes all.”

“So, what do I get when I pin you?” There was a purr in his voice that Shepard didn’t bother to parse, even as it sent shivers down her spine. She took a step closer, sizing him up. He would probably be able to pin her pretty easily, if she wasn’t fast enough.

“What makes you think you’ll end up on top?”

Vakarian took another step and there were scant inches between them. She could smell him-- pine and steel and ozone. Gunfight in a rainforest. She remembered his arms around her as he carried her to the car when she’d been fucking _dying in his arms..._

“Shepard?”

“Hmm?” He caught her wrist, the one that held her wine, and tugged the glass from her hand which had gone suddenly numb and stupid with surprise at the contact, turning slightly to set it on a nearby crate. His hands were larger than she thought they might be (had she been thinking about them?) the two thick talons and his thumb able to enclose the entire joint of her wrist and then some. She wondered what talons felt like against bare skin.

Wait, what? That was a very...intrusive thought.

“We’re not talking about sparring anymore, are we?”

Wait… _what_?

Oh. Oh no. Did he think she’d be coming on to him? What with the sparing, and the reach and flexibility, and landing on top and… suddenly Shepard’s eyes widened, lips parted.

Had she been coming on to him?

 _Yeah. You’re totally coming on to Vakarian_.

She laughed and he huffed, his head tilting. That was… hilarious.

“Uh-- no. I don’t think we were ever really talking about sparing.” He was so close she could see the texture of his plates, like brushed and battered steel, and the sharp line of his clan markings as his face dropped to peer into her eyes. Damn it, if he’d been human she would have already had him on his back and moaning, but turians were so damn hard to read.

“So what, exactly, are we talking about?” His voice was cool and low. Her hand drifted to his chest and toyed with a gusset on his armor. Damn his eyes were blue, staring at her so intently, mouth so close all she had to do was rise on her toes and...

Fuck it. Might as well. What did she have to lose besides the respect of her boss, the comradery of a fellow soldier? Sex never messed up hierarchy for her before… she fraternized just like any other young merc-- she’d fucked bosses and subordinates-- no strings. There was something else that worried her, though. The question bloomed again: What did she have to lose? Only her friend. Her… best friend.

Okay, when had Vakarian become her best friend? That couldn’t be right.

But it was. And she wanted to kiss him.

“I’d rather show you,” she said, and an instant later she was on her toes, seeking his mouth with his… and met… nothing but air. He’d pulled away just far enough to dodge the kiss, and Shepard felt a rush of shame like they were actually sparring and he’d punched her in the gut. That was probably the shortest lived attempted hookup in her entire history.

“Oh,” she breathed. “I… clearly misread--” She she took a step back, scrambling mentally to recover her cool, but he still had hold of her wrist and his hand tightened, keeping her from going any farther.

“Shepard…you didn’t... “ He took a deep breath. “You didn’t misread anything. Trust me.” His words were emphatic, and she tilted her head to the side, suddenly currios. “It’s just... this is damn dangerous,” his voice was… more complex somehow, like the distance between the dual pitches had widened, his sub vocals going higher, almost a whine. For fucks sake, what did he actually want here? “Have you ever… been with a turian? Spirits, my saliva could kill you… allergic reactions, anaphylactic shock. Not to mention the anatomy difference… I don’t want to hurt you.”

That tactical, practical mind of his was getting in the way, damn it! Though he was right. Of course he was right. “Sensat and Waver do it. And I’ve kissed a turian before! It was fine. And if it’s not fine this time, I have a medkit with some epipens and antihistamines and medigel downstairs, and I know you’re good in a medical crisis.”

“That’s not-- I don’t want to hurt--” She felt his body relaxing even as he protested, sidling closer so his chest brushed her shoulder but then his eyes locked on hers again, narrowing sharply. “Wait… what do you mean, ‘downstairs’?”

She froze suddenly. Had she really just… oh, oh no. Busted. “I’ve got a place…” she was pulling away again, but he tugged her back and she followed his movement until they were nearly nose to nose.

He didn’t say anything for a moment. “So this whole time… the past few weeks we’ve been shooting… it’s been right above your place? And you were going to tell me this, when?” His voice came out a heated growl, and she couldn’t tell if he was angry, confused, hurt… or?

She shrugged, their eyes locked again, hers pleading.

“Secrets,” she said, as if that explained it all and he threw up his hands. They had an agreement not to pry, though, and the second he started pushing on that boundary she’d be done. Good as gone. Could he see that being brought here, even without telling him where _here_ was, had been a deep act of trust?

It had also been incredibly fucking stupid.

Then again, Nym Shepard had always had the market cornered on incredibly fucking stupid.

She took a step closer, continuing their little dance of attack and retreat across the roof as they negotiated. This was happening, now. He wanted her. She _apparently_ also wanted him, though this was brand new fucking news. And now he knew where she lived. He leaned in, and she smelled rainforest again.

He studied her intently, and she wondered if his heart was beating a rabbit-paced tattoo of adrenaline and fear the way her’s was. Damn, she was _nervous._ Nym Shepard… nervous!

“Shepard… I’ve just seen so much go wrong in this damn galaxy...” He sounded _tired._ More secrets she wouldn’t pursue. His head dropped lower and instead of going to kiss him, Shepard raised her chin and their foreheads met and she heard a low rumble from him, and his hands slipped around her hips, pulling her close.

Her voice was small but tinged with humor even through her nerves. “We’re on Omega. How could things go any more wrong?”

He huffed a laugh and she pressed herself into his body, noting the unfamiliar contours of him against her own, a body that was probably as equally alien to him as he was to her. Was the forehead touch a turian thing? Their current embrace wasn’t human… if he was human they would have been kissing and groping each other by now, getting a feel for their soft, compatible bodies, but at the moment all she could do was press herself against his armor as he pressed down on her forehead with his, breath hot and metallic on her cheek, her back bent back awkwardly to accommodate his protruding sternum.

“Listen up, Shepard. You’re going to take me down stairs,” he said, words slow and dangerous in her ear, and she shivered, grinning. _Yeah, Vakarian, you tell it like it is._ “You are going to get your medkit, and your fuckin epipen, and then I’m going to kiss you like humans do it, just to see what it’s like-- and Spirits help me if you have an allergic reaction, I’m going to…”

She pressed his fingers to his mouth, feeling the hard, but somehow flexible plates and the steady warmth of him. He blinked. “And if I don’t… have a bad reaction… I’m going to get you out of that armor so fast your head will spin.” A three fingered hand tightened on her hip, sliding down to cup her ass and she closed her eyes, wriggling closer to him for a moment before she eased away. His arms dropped, and she saw a mix of heat and wariness in his eyes, his fingers fiddling with the fittings on his visor, glowing blue in the dim orange light of Omega’s skyline.

Shepard’s smile was crooked and she jerked her head to a door on the far wall.

“Let’s pack up and then… uh… follow me.”

~~~

 _Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck._ What was she doing? What had she been _thinking_ , playing so close to home.

Three floors down and several hallways later was enough time to make her nerves flare up. It wasn’t the potential sex-- sex didn’t make Shepard nervous, but rather the intrusion on her privacy, the incursion into her inner sanctum in order to make sure that they had access to a med kit. It was such a stupid reason-- but a _valid one._ That meant she was bringing someone _home._ She was bringing _Vakarian_ home.

She kicked open a side door and drew him down the long hall, palming or keying in security inputs here and there as she went.

“Impressive,” he said, a brow plate raised as he clattered down the hall. He stopped for a moment to peer at the security lock. “Did you do all this?” Shepard shook her head. “I know people. This place has been a work in progress since I was… well...” The final door slid open, and she threw her arms wide. “Welcome to home.”

“This is where you lived? Before…?”

 _Before what, Vakarian? Before I was a crazy freelancer with a deathwish? When I was Aria’s pet? Yeah, this is where I lived. Funny, I’m still here._ But she didn’t say it. Her heart beating a cruel tattoo against her chest as he stepped through the threshold and a little voice in her head was yelling _run run run run._ Somehow her voice came out easy, as if she gave tours all the time.

“Yep. Now it’s just my base when I need to crash on Omega, but it’s got a lot of history. And a lot of security, so don’t bother trying to get in here without me.” Inside she was wound tight and vibrating, like a released bowstring, still reverberating with the madness that she was currently entertaining.

“Shepard,” he said flatly. “I know how you are about privacy. Honestly, I would never.”

“Uh huh.”

“Besides, I’ve got my own base. With uh…” His eyes scanned the hanger, “probably three times as much fire power. This is nothing.”

The “nothing” he spoke of, her home, was about 50 meters long, with huge doors that opened out into the lower core of the space station. Her old shuttle was parked at the far end, retrieved from the base a few days prior. The hangar had been retrofitted piecemeal over the years, housing Nym mostly, but other of Aria’s strays and people under her protection as well. It’s location was secret-- a true safehouse. And Archangel was here. He knew where she lived, now. Did he know the implications, the breech of protocol? WIth the way his mind worked, devious and tactical, she doubted it escaped him.

But did he know just how terrified that made her? That, she doubted.

There was an area for biotics training, which was the main reason Aria had housed her in a hangar in the first place, and over the years Shepard had built a workshop along one wall containing old weapons and armor, and probably a more than healthy amount of mods, all outdated at this point and some very much illegal, at least in places that bothered with laws. These days she kept the good stuff on her ship, so most of the gear was broken or obsolete, kept around for parts and nostalgia. Garrus put his rifle cases down and wandered over, but didn’t touch anything, looking to her for permission.

Gods. Why was she being so fucking squirly? It was just Vakarian-- what was he going to do, ask her who had raised her, or how she’d gotten the place or what her worst memories of the hanger were?

Deep breath. Exhale.

“Go on, take a look.” He grinned and began to rummage, calling out as he recognized a rare mod or a spare part. What a nerd. She wandered over to feed her fish in the old tank she’d salvaged years ago, but glanced over her shoulder at him when he said her name.

“Shepard?”

“Hmm?”

“Is this… a stun whip?”

He was holding a baton with a semi-flexible rope on the end, threaded with conductors. “Yeah. Ever heard of Cerberus?” He growled darkly, and she took that for a yes. “Did a raid on an experimental weapons lab a few years back. Took that off a soldier who was trying to brian me with it. I was trying to mod it so it can channel biotics, but it gives me a nosebleed.” Garrus dropped the baton whip hastily.

“Aw, damn. My koi died.” Her heart sank to bob along the bottom of the tank with the corpse of her dead fish. She’d just gotten that koi, after getting back from her disastrous gun-running mission for Ceirea. Maybe it hadn’t gotten along with the jellies? Garrus wandered over to look at her tank. It was twenty gallons, not huge, but big enough that the koi should have been fine. Other fish darted around, and the jellies floated along the top, seemingly healthy and harmelss.

“Fish?” He looked amused. “Uh. Dead fish.”

“A hoby. Always better at killing things, apparently.” She managed to extract the fish with a net on a stick and went to flush it. “Bathroom’s here,” she said, and Garrus followed. The bathroom was a modular one that had been taken from a derelict tanker and patched into the sewage and water systems, jutting out into the hanger’s main space at an awkward angle.

He peered into the toilet as she dropped the koi into the shallow fill of water.

“Goodbye fish,” she said sadly.

Garrus patted her arm. “May your fish find peace in the heart of Omega’s plumbing, wherever that may lead. You know, I’m amazed Omega even has plumbing.” She flushed it in a whoosh of water and compressed air. “Hopefully it doesn't mutate and come back to haunt you. That would be bad.”

“Thanks, Vakarian. Somehow you always know just what to say.”

“Always happy to provide perspective.” Garrus’s eyes kept wandering, making her nervous again, and they fell on the loft above the kitchen. The railing was covered in plants of various species and sizes, long and trailing down to create a semi-private curtain. She noticed him staring. “That’s private.”

“Your bunk?” Ugh. Perceptive bastard.

She winked, and Garrus leaned against the pillar by the door, eyes narrow and lazy, popping out his hip and crossing his arms as his gaze shifted to her, studying her. Her face grew slightly warmer.

“Some things should remain a mystery,” he commented wryly, but the back of his neck had gone blueish, and his eyes didn’t quite meet hers. “If you’ve got fish down here, who knows what you keep up there.”

Gods, he was cute.

“You’re lucky I don’t have a pet varen at the moment.”

“Varen?” he managed, almost choking, ruining the cool guy look.

“Too busy to train ‘em right. They are a serious handful, and hazardous to your health.” She pulled back the sleeve of her jumpsuit and showed him the scars from varen bites she’d sustained when training her first pup, back when she was eight and thought she was invincible. Well, more invincible than she was now. He pulled her arm closer for inspection, running his gloved talons lightly over the dimpled, pale and twisting scars -- she remembered his hands on her up on the roof, and shivered.

“You’re a strange person, Shepard.” He was grinning, but his expression softened as his fingers traced the bare skin on her arm. Goosebumps rose, unbidden.

“Says the guy who gets people to call him Archangel.” He snorted. There was an awkward pause.

“Med kit, Shepard,” he said. Apparently his patience had run out.

She extracted her arm and fished around in a nearby cabinet until she found it. She tossed the small bag to Vakarian, who caught it and inspected the contents, pulling out the epipen and setting it aside before stepping forward.

“Well?”

“Well,” she echoed. “Is this still something you want to do? I’m easy, but… I don’t want things to get weird.”

“Pretty sure things are already weird,” he said, and it was her turn to huff a laugh. “Come here. I’d like to try that particularly weird human thing called ‘kissing.’”

Shepard took a step forward and he met her halfway. Her hands went up to touch his mouth again, tracing the edges of the silvery plates. They were warm, and full of life-- and that was unexpected, now she was paying closer attention. She was expecting something like a shell, or armor, but it was skin, just hard and smooth. His mouth parted at her touch, and before she could think too hard about it, about him being here and about her standing in the middle of her hanger kissing someone, she drew his mouth to hers and pressed her lips there.

They stood like that for a moment, still and close, their skin finally meeting. It was nothing like kissing a human. She pulled away, and Vakarian’s brow plates shot upward in surprise, she leaned in and kissed him again, tracing her lips along the seam of his mouth until it parted and she felt heat and damp. He was still for a moment before… the only word she could find for it was _nuzzling…_ he nuzzled closer, and she let her tongue slip out to explore the edges of his mouth. He rumbled and she felt the flicker of his own tongue brush hers before retreating as if shy.

He pulled away slightly. “How are you feeling? Any numbness? Shortness of breath?”

Her own eyebrow shot up and she tugged at his cheek, trying to get his mouth back on hers. “I’m fine, Dr. Vakarian, thank you. I’ve told you, I’ve made out with a turian before.”

“Right. Good. We’ll still need to be careful.” She felt a rush of heat creep up her neck at his relieved smile-- it wasn’t just relief that they could continue their hookup, but relief that she was fine, unaffected by him. “I’ll have to practice that one. Turians don’t uh-- kiss. Now what?”

“Congratulations. You’re a kissing turian. Now? Let's see what we can do about that armor. It’s in the way.” She was leaning lazily against the counter, grinning as her fingers went to the zipper on her jumpsuit and drawing it down...

He froze, staring at her for a moment with an unreadable expression, and Shepard froze instinctively as well, feeling suddenly like prey. His mandibles flared and he took a step forward, ignoring her request to do away with the armor. Stillness and sudden ambush, that was… utterly turian. Apex predator. She found long, turian arms around her and she was off her feet with a turian forehead pressed against her human one for just an instant.

“Armor, Vakarian,” she managed to squeak out, but then teeth were deployed and she felt all the blood rush from her brain into her groin, desire that had been growing slowly since they’d started talking on the roof spiking sharply into _need_. The past year of loss and longing hit her hard as his teeth found her neck and tasted her carefully, not breaking skin but pricking it, mouthing at her to see how hard he could push before she was broken. She moaned as her body told her that this was good and she needed more. Now.

“What was that?” He asked suddenly, hot, humid breath against her neck, smelling like a rainforest. “What?” She pulled back. Pinned between him and the counter, she’s gotten his armored leg between her thighs and was shamelessly grinding against him, each rocking movement just enough to tease her clit and make her want more and he was pressing back hard enough to bruise, his hand digging in at at the small of her back.

“That noise you made.” She had her lips pressed against the hide behind his faceplates, soft and thick in a texture that reminded her of soft leather, nubuck. She licked him and he shuddered, his grip tightening around her.

“This?” She slid her hips forward and reached up to wrap her arms around his neck, draping them carefully on the inside of his cowl, and moaned again against the little hole that was his ear, teasing out the sound intentionally.

He growled in response. “That. I like that. Do it again.” She complied, didn’t have to exaggerate this time because his teeth had found her bared collarbone and his hands were on her ass again helping her rock back and forth on his thigh, and her brain starting to fuzz with static, and her mouth started making noises without her permission.

Suddenly he jerked away from her, leaving her staggering on two numb feet, and there were several resounding bangs as pieces of his armor hit the floor. He wore a soft suit underneath, and stripped hastily, awkwardly, claws fumbling as he continued to study her. His spurs were difficult to navigate, she realized, and she was suddenly very aware that there were lots of little bits sticking out of him that could do serious damage if they were not very, very careful. Her jumpsuit was easier to get out of due to her lack of spurs and buckles, so she pulled it off lazily as she watched him undress. This single zipper went from neck to groin, and she dragged it downward, letting the jumpsuit slink to the floor. Beneath it she wore a tight compression bra across her chest, and a pair of skin tight boxers slung low on her hips.

Even under his armor, and his body suit, he was still… armoured. _Plates,_ she reminded herself. It was beautiful the way his carapace twisted from hard planes and angles on his chest and sides into the sinuous curve of his cowl. He was brown and silver and…. so beautiful. Naked turian definitely made her a little awestruck, just at the pure power in their design… But even as she drank him in, it was still just Vakarian. Cool, awkward, obsessive, talented Vakarian. And she was in awe of him. The points of his spurs on his hips and legs made strong lines that wove into knotted muscle that stood out against his hide and his waist was narrow in and free of plates, the hide there smooth like the suede behind his neck. The juncture of his thighs was smooth, but two plates formed a seam that she knew would widen as he was aroused, revealing that thick, halfway to prehensile cock that turians were well known for in Fornax and other galactic smut, covered in his own lubrication. She could see the gleam of wetness there at the seam of his plates already, set to dripping, and noticed the small shift of his plates as he struggled to keep under control. He was so alien it took her breath away-- she had no idea where to begin. He was a sanctuary of strangeness and she wanted to touch everything, find the places that were soft and secret, show him that she would find those spots, but would also not not shy away from the sharp edges and spurs of him, show him she was not afraid. He was staring at her, and she knew he was doing the same sort of calculations on of her own body, wondering what went where and how this was going to work. She wondered what he saw, but she was too afraid to ask.

“Like what you see?” He asked, noticing her stare as he tore his eyes from her hips. “I do,” she murmured. “What about you Vakarian?” She managed the question despite the tightness in her throat.

“I might need a bit of guidance, but yeah. So far, I like what I see. I like it all.” He came forward and brushed his hand along her hips, then her top, and she shuddered as his fingers brushed her nipple from over her binder. “Do you care about these?” He tugged at her remaining garments, all business and raw desire, no time for sweet talk, just getting the minimum amount of information needed to proceed.

“I care about the bra, but you can shred the bottoms.” He looked confused for a second as he parced the word “bra,” but both taloned hands moved down to her waist and he was on her with no more preamble. He had removed his gauntlets along with his armor, and his talons were bare and pale, blunted at her hips and he jerked down, the fabric of her boxers ripping and she shivered at the force of it. Shepard was always a fan of having the clothes ripped off her.

She shrugged out of the bra and tossed it aside and her small breasts came free. She shivered as his busy hands ran up and down the length of her flank, pausing at the jutting crest of hip bone and then he tentatively reached up to trace the jut of her collar bone. It seemed he liked all the places her bones stuck out, though his eyes were on her breasts. Her own hands were busy exploring his carapace and his arms, and she was straddling his thigh, now bare and getting slick with her wetness, but he didn’t seem to mind.

“Have you had sex with a human before?” Vakarian shook his head, his eyes on her breasts and his hands passing over her sternum and tracing her collarbones. “Breasts are an erogenous zone for many.” She took his hand and guided him to cup her there. “Nipple,” she said, indicating the little nub of flesh that was growing hard under his touch. “Mmm, like that.” He was making a low, resonant sound and tore his eyes from her chest to study her face.

“Do you like it?”

“Mmmmmm, yeah. Do you?” He nodded, digging his talons in slightly to dimple her flesh. “Harder. Good, yeah. Okay. That’s about as hard as I like it right now. Harder later.”

“You’re good at this. Very informative.”

“I know what I like, Vakarian.”

“Mmmmm… show me.”

“Let’s sit,” she said, withdrawing and leading him to the faded old sofa in what served as a sitting area. She gave him a little shove and he sat obediently so she could straddle his narrow hips. She guided his taloned hand down to the cleft between her thighs, inhaling sharply as he touched her cunt for the first time. He made a curious humming noise, almost a chirp as she guided his hand to explore soft dark curls becoming slick with her arousal, stroking her lips and then the button of her clit. She shivered at the contact, feeling her brain balloon with desire and make her feel numb and clumsy.

“That’s the sweet spot. Little button of nerves.” she said, voice rough, and leaned in so her breasts were close to his mouth. He nuzzled her again, the rough plate reddening her skin. No sign of an allergic reaction. Good. Shepard would be very put out if they had to stop on account of her body not cooperating.

“Turian women have something similar, though it’s bigger,” he said. He began to rub a talon up and down the outside of her cunt, and the cool feeling of almost-bone had her shuddering against his hand. Fuck. Yes. Turian hands. He found her left nippe and his dusky blue tongue darted out, thick and long, and… oh fuck, wrapped around the little bud of flesh, even as he found a pace and began to rub around her clit.

“Oh, gods,” she mumbled as her fingers found crevices and valleys along his back, and then inside his cowl, back to the suede of his neck and…

“A little higher,” he said into her chest, his pressure on her clit increasing slightly as her fingers found the sweet spot below his fringe. The dual flanged tone of his groan made the ache between her legs twinge with deeper need, and she wondered what that groan would feel like against her cunt… and fuck… he was slowing down. Her fingers tightened along his neck in frustration, and she moaned.

“Vakarian… come on!”

“Shepard,” he said. “We’ve got to go slow, here.” His hand was back on the outside of her cunt, tracing her folds with something like awe, head tilted up and chin resting against her chest so he could look at her. Her hands slipped around his carapace, down his chest, beginning to explore his endless, alien textures. “You’re so… uh-- soft. I don’t want to hurt you.”

“I’m tougher than I look Vakarian,” she warned, and grinned as he gasped. Her fingers had found the thick hide of his waist and after a moment’s hesitation, she ran her fingers along the slightly pebbled, suede-like hide.

“Fu-uck, Shepard, harder.” She dug her fingers in to massage him there and he gasped again and then brought her other hand down to his waist and he captured it in his talons, blunt and pale, dragging her hand down to feel the smooth plates between his splayed legs.

“Keeping yourself to yourself?” She murmured, finding the seam that was beginning to part, rubbing up and down, hand slick with his own lubrication. It wasn’t wet the way a human cunt might get wet, it was less slippery and more viscous, like a coating that would stay put, and her hand became frictionless against him.

“It feels good to hold myself in a while,” he grunted, his hand returning to her cunt and continuing his investigation. She felt his plates shift under her hands and her fingers met something soft, pillowy, that reminded her of a human vagina… but not. “Fuck, Shepard,” Vakarian was panting into her shoulder as they touched each other. “Finger me,” he urged. “Stick your fingers inside my sheath… gently. You’ll feel my cock....” It was not a demand, more of a request, a shy sort of pleading and she obliged, slipping her fingers into the heat of him until she found the pointed, twitching edge of his cock. He let out a low growl and his head fell back, fringe propped against the couch back. She ran her fingers around the tip experimentally and he groaned. She shifted, widening her legs so he could have better access to her cunt.

“Put your fingers inside of me,” she urged, just as hoarse as he was, quiet and desperate. Each move they made was slightly bolder, but every step further they went Shepard felt the edge of danger. What would happen when they actually got to the fucking? Would they get that far? Could they…? Her line of thought was severed as Vakarian found her opening by feel and slipped a single talon inside, gently, so carefully, but still she felt herself stretch around his thick, knobbed finger and she groaned, slipping more fully into his sheath until she had gentle grip of the head of his cock with her fingertips. She felt his cock slipping out just slightly as she twisted her finger tips around the curved, pointed head even as he began to rock his hand against her cunt. They were both quiet but for sharp little gasps and groans of surprise, hands and mouths working determinedly learning each other’s bodies, Shepard letting out the occasional whimper as Vakarian brushed her g-spot and then lost it again. She shifted and wiggled down more fully onto his thrusting hand and then-- Oh-- fuck…

“Th-there,” she said with a low moan. “T-there’s the spot inside,” she managed through a shuddering breath, and Vakarian groaned with her and she felt his cock slither fully from its sheath and into her hand. It was blue, darker than his clan markings and vibrant, blurring to bright indigo near the base. He had no visible testicles, though she imagined they were seated internally. She’d have to read up on turian anatomy. He was not much longer than an average human might be, but he was rigged and thick at the base, the tip thinner and pointed, curling urgently in her grip as she slid her hand along his length, tentative, not knowing just how he might like to be touched now that he was out, and feeling lost with this alien cock in her hand.

He wasn’t going to let her guess, though. He rumbled deep in her chest and she leaned into the sensation as he murmured instructions. “That’s it, right at the tip and work your way… nngh, down. Faster, now it’s out.” She played with his cock, getting the feel as he resumed his own work on her with two fingers now and his thumb on her clit, taking a few thrusts to find her g-spot again with a sniper’s finesse. Soon she was quivering over him, collapsed against his shoulder and forgetting to stroke his cock in return as she lost herself to the feeling of his fingers, large and hard, plunging into her again and again.

“Harder,” she said in a whisper by his ear, and with a pleasure soaked groan of his own, Vakarian obliged. She felt the muscles in his arm bunch and seize as he dove his fingers deeper into her, curling to find the right spot inside now that he’d gotten the feel for it. She moaned, leaning into his carapace, his hide roughening her nipples and making them harden as they rubbed against him over and over. “Vakarian, shit, shit you’re gonna make me cum doing that, oh, shit…” she was swearing, getting louder until he paused, pulling back to try and look at her. “Don’t-- fuck, don’t fucking stop, Vakarian, please…” she was begging now, hands digging into his waist and he sped up, slamming his fingers into her cunt again and again until she felt the spool of her orgasm unravel and she came around his fingers with a cry, muscles spasming and thighs trembling. His other arm went around her waist and he jerked her close, fingers of his other hand buried deep inside to feel every spasm, his thumb stroking her clit to draw out the moment as long as he could.

“Fuck,” she managed after a moment, breathing hard into his neck. She stuck her nose behind the little hole that served as his ear, and kissed his neck, then after a moment’s consideration, bit him there. Vakarian moaned and shifted his hand but she sat down more fully so he was trapped, and pulled back to flash him a lazy, dazed grin.

“Not bad, Vakarian,” she said. He looked smug, and flexed his fingers so she moaned again.

“Not bad at all,” he murmured. “Can I uh… have my hand back?”

“I dunno. That was pretty good. I think I’ll keep it,” she said, but then Vakarian shifted and suddenly she found herself on her back, with a very large and clearly aroused turian on top of her. The sight of him was almost terrifying, but he smiled as he pulled his fingers from her cunt, ropes of her slick hanging from his fingers. She grabbed his wrist, all muscle and sinew and leaned up to pop one taloned finger into her mouth, tasting herself on his skin and talon. He hummed, watching with fascination as she worked first one then the other finger in her mouth.

“Human mouths do the craziest things,” he murmured, and Shepard let his talon pop out of her mouth with a grin. He had her caged by one arm, his knees on the floor. “That was fun.”

“What d’you mean, ‘was’? We’re not done yet.”

Vakarian blinked. “You want more?”

Her grin widened. “Yeah,” she breathed. The dolt. “I’ve got like… two more of those in me. Maybe more. And we haven’t even gotten started with you.”

Vakarian looked embarrassed, sitting back on his heels and watching her. “Once a turian woman climaxes things usually… start wrapping up. Just a one and done kind of thing, but it takes a while, so usually… if her partner is male, he’ll come first… a few times.”

Shepard laughed. So that’s why he’d slowed down when she said she was going to climax. But, smart man that he was, he’d figured it out… or he was just a generous lover, more concerned with her climax than the possibility that she’d still want to continue afterwards. “Lots of humans can keep going for a few rounds. I’m good, if you want to continue.”

To answer, he leaned in, mouth plates parted, and nudged his mouth against her lips in an an approximation of a kiss. Her hands went around his waist again and she massaged him there until he moaned, relaxing into this kiss so she could slip her tongue into his mouth. His own tongue met hers, and it was rough and prehensile, sliding along hers and… oh shit… wrapping around it, massaging gently and suddenly she imagined where else that tongue might be put to use if only if they were sure there wouldn’t be horrible consequences… but there was saliva being exchanged with only a mild tingling, so maybe… but no need to rush, even as the blood left her brain and pooled in her core. She moaned into his mouth, and he responded in kind, her hands and his talons becoming urgent on soft limbs and hard plates.

Vakarian shuddered as she explored his waist again, and suddenly Shepard found herself being jerked towards the edge of the couch. He moved so _fast_ and that should scare her, but it didn’t… it got her pretty bothered, in fact, and she let her legs fall to either side so he could see her cunt, and seat himself between her thighs. His fingers were at her cunt again, but she ginned.

“There’s other ways to get off, you know.”

His mandibles twitched, eyes bright and she saw his cock writhe as he took hold of it and began to stroke himself as he explored her body with his other hand, raking talons across her belly and her chest to leave little red lines in his wake. “Really? What do you have in mind?”

Shepard grinned and tugged him closer. “Oh, you know,” she said.

“No, I really don’t. First time with a human, remember. You’re soft, and do weird things with your mouth. You’re gonna have to walk me throu-ohh,” he moaned as she cut him off when she slipped her fingers around the base of his cock, rubbing her fingers along his opened plates, still slick with his arousal.

“I want you to fuck me, Vakarian,” she said, almost sweet, brushing a curl of hair from her eyes with her spare hand, before dragging it down her chest to find a nipple and toy with it, noting how Vakarian’s eyes followed her every move. “I want your cock inside me. I want you to pound into me until I’m screaming and you can’t take it anymore and then… I want you to come all over my tits.” She paused to gauge his reaction, which was… a grin, widening by degrees.

“Shepard.”

“I’d have you cum inside me, but--”

“Shepard.”

“Hm?” “Turians only ejaculate if they’re trying to reproduce. It’s not gonna be an issue.”

“Oh. Oh! That’s great, then! Do you… you know… climax, still?”

“Yeah. I cum.” Vakarian dipped his head in assent, continuing down to trace a line up her sternum with his rough tongue and she shivered at the sensation, feeling her cunt pulse with anticipation.

“Show me, then,” she said. He was still on his knees-- backward as they were, and rose slightly with cock still in hand, his other hand roving her thighs and the outside of her cunt. He dipped his fingers inside her again and then they both adjusted slightly, lining up and then he pushed his cock inside her with a deep groan, eyes closing briefly as he adjusted to her tight heat. He met more resistance as he pushed further inside, and Shepard felt herself stretching to accommodate every widening ridge of him until she felt full to bursting.

He began to rock against her, sighing deeply. “Show me how you cum,” she sighed, rocking her slim hips in time with his thrusts. He gathered her legs up and propped them on his shoulder, nuzzling a line down her scarred calf, gripping around her knees as he thrust harder, less tentatively.

“Fuck, Shepard--” his pupils were blown wide so his iris-- the one not concealed by his visor, was a slim ring of ice blue. “Fuu- ugh, tell me if I hurt you, Shepard, please, I don’t wa-aaaaa, oh Spirits, wh--” Though his speech was more of a broken growl, he kept rocking against her at a steady pace, arms planted on the back of the couch for more leverage, and she laughed, jerking her hips in time with his. She realized suddenly how careful he must be with her as he learned her body… one wrong slip of his talons could have cut her, one wrong jerk of his body against her could impale her on a spur… and yet she wasn’t afraid. He was smart and deliberate and she trusted him not to hurt her here just as she trusted him to always have her back in the field when she charged around, reckless and deadly… She wanted more, harder, faster and she moaned her desires to him.

“You aren’t going to hurt me, V.,” she panted as she rode him. “You won’t. C’mon, harder, you can fuck me… harder, right? I like it… I’ll tell you if it’s too much, I... uuuhh yes!” His hand went to her chest, bouncing in time to his thrusting, and dug a talon into the soft skin, raking lines down her breast and onto her belly and then back up, over and over. Shepard’s moans became louder as they fucked. Her legs dropped from his shoulders and found a sweet spot around Vakarian’s narrow waist, squeezing with her thighs as she cried out, fingers scrambling for purchase on his carapace. He leaned over her and hauled her to his chest so she hung in his arms, legs locked around his waist and arms around his neck, inside his cowl. He rocked her hard against him, head buried in her neck and she could feel another orgasm winding up inside, coiled deep in her belly and she moaned, knowing it was going to blindside her.

Vakarain was making low, dual toned moans and she clung to him, and she was shaking as they drove their bodies together again and again, his cock stirring a deep ache in her cunt. Shepard was going to be sore tomorrow. Maybe for the next few days…

“Fuck, Shepard,” he moaned. “Keep this up and I’m going to… uh… uhh…” he panted into her neck as they rode each other, until teeth found her shoulder and he cried out once. She felt his cock contract in on itself inside of her, an alien sensation, but one that hit her g-spot just as she felt her own orgasm come loose inside her gut and turn everything overbright and bleeding into void. She cried out once. The hangar was gone, there was no shabby old couch, no Omega. No Archangel or Shepherd, just Nym and her turian lover, the rough hasp of his plates on her abused thighs and the delicate ache of her cunt as he lowered himself to the floor, Shepard still seated in his lap with her legs around his waist and his cock buried inside. She clutched at him, trembling and he pressed his forehead to hers, panting and looking completely ruined. He’d never looked like this before-- totally disarmed with eyes fever bright.

She closed her eyes, sighing. Neither spoke for a moment, just breathed each other in, until Vakarian pulled away slightly, his hand cradling the back of her neck, thumb rubbing an absent pattern behind her hear. She could feel his cock retreating from her and she moaned as it shifted inside of her.

“You… okay?”

Shepard cracked an eye open and smiled vaguely, leaning back into his arms. “Oh yes,” she breathed. “Fan-fucking-tastic. That was…” She paused, trying to find words to describe fucking a turian. Fucking Vakarian. And that was just the first time… there were so many things that they could still...

“Impressive?”

She hummed noncommittally and he mock scowled, tried to pull away, but she grabbed his face and planted a kiss on his mandible. She never felt quite genuine complementing people after sex-- the requisite “that was amazing” and “you are fantastic” was just too much of a line.

But Vakarian? Impressive.

“Impressive,” she murmured with a little laugh as she untangled her legs from his waist. He moaned at the release, eyes flickering shut and she grinned-- suddenly remembering the drunken night she’d grabbed his waist on accident. Funny they’d ended up here, of all places.

They unwound from each other and Shepard stood, unsteady, taking a step back and flopping onto the couch. Vakarian stood slowly, unfolding from his kneeling spot on the floor and came to sit next to her. She scooted so there was no space between them and he raised his arm to wrap it around her shoulders and her head dropped to his shoulder. It felt so… normal. They weren’t human or turian, but just two people who had fucked and were now coming down from the rush. His head dropped to rest on the top of hers, and they sat there in silence for a while, bodies returning to baseline. Shepard was feeling dreamy as she sat against him, hard and warm.

“So…” Vakarian said after a while.

And then she remembered where they were.

A stab of panic lanced through her gut. This was the part she dreaded. She should have been more explicit with her needs-- they had sex, and now… he needed to leave. She couldn’t have him lingering in this space, trying to get comfortable or pushing on her privacy.

“So.”

Vakarian stiffened. “Hang on--” Shepard leaned away to look at him. “Shit… I’m getting a comm from base. Sorry...”

“Go ahead,” she said, propping herself on the arm of the sofa to watch him. Perfect. A call would give her a moment to gather her thoughts, find a kind way to tell him that he needed to get the hell out so she could process. Not the sex. The sex was great. Impressive. Alien.

Whatever.

She needed to think… think through why the hell she’d brought him here in the first place.

“Archangel. Go ahead.” He went from dazed to focused in a matter of moments, leaning forward and listening intently. “Target practice.... With Shepard, yeah.” His mandibles twitched and Shepard shoved him with a bare foot. Vakarian shot her a look tinged with smugness, mandibles twitching as his eyes lingered on her naked body before dragging up to her face. Oh, he was fucking adorable. She grinned despite her mounting anxiety. It wasn’t _him_ that had her so keyed up. It was where they were... “Got it. Be there in ten.”

Leaving? Ten minutes.

Shepard gave him a curious look. “That was Weaver. Blue Suns on the move again-- ze and Sensat are staking them out and want backup to take out the squad leader. Nasty batarian son-of-a-bitch with a reputation for torture. You in?”

Shepard grinned. “Damn right, I’m in.”

_Weaver, you blessed and beautiful creature._

“Uh… fair warning.” Shepard titled her head. “Sensat is going to be able to uh… smell us. On each other.”

“Great,” she sighed, leveraging herself off the couch. “Not like she needs another reason to hate me. Doesn't bother me if it doesn’t bother you.”

Vakarian chuckled as he followed her to their piles of discarded gear, but didn’t touch her again, and she kept a careful distance as they dressed.

“We’ll just pretend we have no idea what she’s talking about,” he mused.

“Oh, she’ll love that. I think a mysterious shrug will work best here.”

“Agreed,” he said as she shrugged into her binder before going to don her armor.

“I’m driving,” she as he pulled on his gauntlets. Vakarian groaned, but just continued to don his armor and she noticed that he was wearing a dazed and stupid grin across his face, mandibles twitching as he watched her cross the room to her combat gear. Vakarian had the dopey expression of a man who’d just had a good lay, so even if someone couldn’t smell them on each other, it was painfully obvious.

Some things were universal, Shepard supposed.

Gods. Weaver had _impeccable_ timing. Their intimacy was severed, and Shepard felt a shift to business that she was intensely grateful for. Yet there was guilt as well for not having the guts to suck it up and tell Vakarian he needed to leave because if he didn’t she was going to freak the fuck out about him being in her house.

Thank the gods for business. Business was good. Business was safe.


	13. Take It Easy (Love Nothing)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> this chapter was totally not part of my original plot but then got this song stuck in my head and clearly these two have other plans. also known as Garrus is pretty good at hiding that he has no chill. *hides face in hands*
> 
> cw for misgendering/questions about Weaver's gender

_First with your hands, then with your mouth_  
_A downpour of sweat, damp cotton clouds_  
_I was a fool, you were my friend_  
_We made it happen_

"Take It Easy (Love Nothing)" - Bright Eyes

 

**Garrus**

“Listen up! We have a new project.”

Conversation faded, and Garrus’ eyes roved over the motley group before him, seated in the living room of Base like they were having some demented family meeting. Some of his people didn’t have their own homes-- at least he knew Melenis never left Base except for missions, and he always wondered about Sidonis. The rest of them spent more time at Base than anywhere else-- apparently Butler had a wife, and she was fairly upset that he was spending so much time away from home, and their teenage daughter. Garrus wondered who else was married, had lovers, had children. He wondered who shared these stories, who kept them private.

Among the squad, friendships and rivalries sprung up like invasive weeds, wrapping them all closer and closer to something like… family.

It made him feel responsible, and looking out over his squad, now eleven strong, counting himself, with another two on the way, he tried not to think of the phrase that popped into his head, but it came unbidden.

_Squad dad._

He was squad dad to a bunch of deadly, overgrown children who were tired and raw and out for blood, or revenge, or redemption, or in some cases (Weaver’s case, really) just _bored_ and looking for a good time.

Garrus let his eyes meet each and every one of his crew in turn. Sensat stood in the back as far from Shepard as possible, stormy face simply oozing contempt. Weaver was watching Garrus and flashed a quick smile as he met hir eyes. Melenis sat on the couch, prim and still, watching everyone without seeming to with those inscrutable drell eyes. When Garrus caught her eye she dipped her head slowly in acknowledgement and then went back to pretending no one else existed. Ripper sat near by, his cybernetics glowing with dim malice in the residential lighting. He and Melenis had struck up something of a stilted friendship, and they were often found together speaking in sign language, four and five fingered hands flying too fast for Garrus to parse.

Sidonis sat at Garrus’ left, and Butler kicked back in an arm chair not far away. The two of them had struck up an odd sort of friendship in the past few months and both men had become indispensable to Garrus. Sidonis was his intel coordinator, keeping tabs on all ongoing projects (there were about seven at the moment, mostly surrounding cracking Blue Suns security and disrupting their supply lines) and making calls on things that didn’t need the boss’s attention. Butler was the squad’s official medic, of course, but he was also in charge of base operations and their practical considerations, health and safety. But Butler was also a perceptive, nosy son-of-a-bitch and his easy manner meant people opened up to him. Much to his wife’s dismay, he was always around with a sympathetic ear and some medigel, ready to apply sutures and words of wisdom as needed, the old _take two and call me in the morning_ , or whatever. Unofficially, Butler came to Garrus with concerns he had about squad members well-being and their suitability for missions.

Butler and Sidonis were his his right and left hand.

The word “his” struck him as he looked over the rest of the squad. His soldiers. His infiltrators. His techs.

 _His squad_. Garrus felt a little bubble of pride as he continued to look them over. They were an odd bunch, broken and ragged and utterly worn out by the hell that was Omega, but they were determined and proud, and Garrus… he loved them. In just six months he’d turned from lone hunter to pack leader. He had a family.

A fucked up, broken, dysfunctional, and deadly family.

The thought made his mandibles twitch.

Vortash was a soft spoken and easily intimidated mechanic. Another turain, with a bad case of PTSD who felt more comfortable with his head under a shuttle than meeting anyone in the eye. Talented as hell, though. Kept the shuttled running.

Then of course there was Krul, glued to his omnitool as always. Shepard sat nearby in her commando gear, slightly smudged with soot, just back from a mission. She’d been talking and joking with the batarian, who’d shot back one word replies at her teasing but never snapped at her like he would with the others and Garrus saw the slightest edge of a smile on his lips. Garrus wondered at their relationship. How had Shepard befriended such a foul tempered batarian, anyway? Why was he so damn loyal to her? The tech savant was clearly devoted, in his own way, and Shepard was always in his corner, making sure no one gave him grief.

Shepard’s eyes darted up and their gazes locked. A slow, crooked smirk spread over that mouth that could spew lies and snark as easily as it could turn a phrase or snap out an order on the battlefield. That mouth that had asked him to spar and then tried to kiss him and then…. Had actually kissed him. And then he’d actually touched… and then she’d actually… and the _sounds…_

_Keep it together, Vakarian._

Garrus felt his mandibles twitch again in a tiny smile, eyes hooded in their dark sockets as he blinked lazily at her, returning her smirk with a comparable turian expression. It had been a week since they’d stripped bare and fucked each other silly, awkwardly fumbling at alien bodies like they were teenagers who’d never touched a lover before, and neither of them had mentioned the night they had spent together since. A million things had kept them from getting each other alone, or breathing a word of it, though these sorts of knowing glances between them had started, eye contact lingering a fraction too long, or a redness on her cheeks, or his damn mandibles twitching to betray him in a smile. He didn’t think she was avoiding him, not with that sort of smile. Best not to talk about it… just let things ride out.

And yet… it was not in either of their natures to be patient.

 _She looks tired,_ he realized. Dark circles under her eyes, hair mussed more than usual. She’d been working endlessly on hit and runs with Krul and the new Salarian explosives expert Sidonis had recruited. The four of them of them had been taking out Blue Suns shipments all week and vanishing again before the mercs even know their contraband had been compromised. He wondered when she’d last slept. She was still healing from her away mission, from getting stabbed, her biotics on the friz, and she looked… ragged.

But her grin widened by a fraction, their eye contact lingering, and then her attention turned Mierin, who was… talking… about something violent, as usual. Besides being handy when it came to weapons sabotage, the former STG operative was their answer to the vorcha pyro problem, and Garrus loved watching bodies fly, rocked by explosions and flames...from a safe distance, of course.

Okay. He was supposed to be leading and speech making, not making eyes at Shepard making eyes at him. Hopefully no one noticed, though he caught a smirk from Butler and Sensat practially had her back to the room at this point.

“We’ve got new insider info,” Garrus said, turning to introduce the two people who stood behind him, a massive green Krogan and an older, dark skinned human with a deep but old scar from an acid burn down the side of her face.

“Erash is former Blood Pack. Monteague has been fighting mercs since half of you were in diapers. Let’s do a little meet and greet, all get acquainted.”

The krogan glowered at the assembled squad before fixing liquid eyes on Garrus. “Too much talking, turian.”

“I’ll speak more slowly so your brain has time to catch up with your translators.”

The krogan rumbled a laugh and Garrus sighed in the privacy of his own head. Insults were always a gamble with kogan-- it could incite or amuse without any real way to tell, but then again, working with krogan in general was a gamble.

“ Monteague, why don’t you tell us about this little project you’ve been working on?”

Monteague looked at the team, eyes sharp and lit with a little fire of madness.

“Listen up, kiddos!” She snapped, stepping forward. Her mouth was pulled in a permanent grimace from the burn on her face, black hair streaked with white, and everyone leaned forward a little when she spoke. “I was running my own op with Erash here, tracking and trying to take out Garm and his cronies, but when Archangel reached out, we agreed to join forces. I’ve got the biotics covered, but we’re going to need more firepower. A lot more.” She let blue flare around her hands for a moment-- and Garrus carefully did not look at Shepard, though he saw her shift from the corner of his eye, his visor picking up and sorting heart rate and blood pressure of everyone in the room. Her vitals sped up a fraction.

“I’m taking point on this,” he said to the group. The plan was simple-- track Garm and his cronies, wait until the Blood Pack leader was alone, and then the fire squad would insure that his team wouldn’t get there in time to prevent Garm’s assassination. And if they slaughtered the rest of the Blood Pack elite while they were at it, all the better. Garrus would lead Ripper and Melenis, while the rest of the squad formed the fire team.

The details were laid out, the plan set in motion for just after the next big move of Blood Pack personnel scheduled for a few days hence. Krul gave Erash and Monteague were given security clearance, and when the meeting was finished, the squad mingled in the common area, Garrus among them. Butler went on food run and twenty minutes brought back a solid mix of levo and dextro stuff, and booze began to flow.

Garrus wasn’t sure when he’d last eaten something that wasn’t a MRE, and tucked into the _chapteth_ and some fermented _keili_ fruit with a will, washing it down with some levo-dextro wine that reminded him of the stuff he’d brought to Shepard’s place last week. Of course, he hadn’t known that it was Shepard’s place at the time, and he didn’t know what to make of that.

He drank it in one swallow, and refilled his glass.

“Welcome to Archangel,” Weaver was saying to the new recruits, shaking Monteague’s hand heartily.

“Tiny human! Are you a man or a woman?” The krogan bellowed, pointing. Sensat growled and stalked forward but Weaver held up hir hand.

“I,” ze said with patience born of long suffering such questions, “am a wizard.”

“That is not a man, or a woman,” Erash said.

Weaver grinned. “Exactly.”

The krogan was baffled, but Melenis stepped in smoothly and peppered the krogan with questions about his life. What was his clan (Raik) and how long had he been with the Blood Pack (long enough to hate them) and had he ever been to Tuchanka (he was born there and returned every solar year) and Weaver slipped away to go bother Sidonis.

“Don’t I know you?” Vakarian heard Monteague say, and he caught Shepard stiffen from the corner of his eye. He took another sip of wine, pretending to be interested in something on his omnitool.

Shepard shrugged, looking unconcerned by the new recruit’s question but he could see her heart rate increase in his visor’s read out. That happened a lot with her, whenever they were confronted with strangers or anyone started asking her questions. He wondered what she was so afraid of. They were all a bunch of fuck ups and failures here, some of them even ex cons. What could possibly be so bad that she seemed more and more like a startled shifty cow every time she met a new person? No one cared, so why did she?

Well, he’d promised not to pry. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t speculate.

He wondered what her relationship to Nihlus had been… She’d kissed turians before, knew she wasn’t fully allergic. Could she have… with Nihlus?

“I dunno,” Shepard was saying, peering at her nails with studied interest. “It’s a pretty big galaxy.”

“I do know you!” Monteague continued, and Garrus thought that Shepard looked ready to bolt. “You’re that anti-slaver-- did a ton of work in the Traverse a few years back. Shepard, right? You worked with Masani… that must have been what… ten years ago now?”

“Yeah, I worked with the old bastard. How do you know him? Or me, for that matter.”

“We teamed up a few times when he went bounty hunter after that shit with the Verrikan. He had only good things to say of you.” “I bet,” she sighed.

“Heard from him lately?”

“It’s been years,” she said with a negative shake of her head.

“Too bad. You know, he’s always looking for an angle on the Blue Suns. I’ll see if I can get a hold of him. Might be interested in Archangel.”

“I’d look forward for another opportunity to make the old man blush,” Shepard said easily, and Monteague laughed. Shepard crossed her arms across her chest, leaning against the wall. To most, it might not look like she was about to bolt, but Garrus saw the lines of tension in her back and shoulders and it reminded him of how she’d been, leaning against him on the couch, tight and smelling like panic, right after they’d fucked, before he’d gotten Weaver’s call and they had been on their merry way.

He’d pretended not to notice.

Now he took another drink, feeling the wine start to blur his senses. He sauntered over, and the two women turned to him. Shepard’s eyebrow was arched high, her gaze level.

“Hey Vakarian,” she said.

“Go get something to eat,” he said with a jerk of his head. Not an order, just a gentle suggestion that she should damn well take care of herself. She shot him a tight smile before sauntering over to where Butler was wielding a carving knife, slicing up some pink levo meat that Garrus didn’t know the name of. It took every shred of will not to keep watching her swaying behind with his eyes, keeping them on Monteague instead.

“So, what do you think of the crew?” He asked the human. She was a veteran from the Terminus, and must have seen some things. She was old enough to have served in the Relay 314 Incident-- the _First Contact War,_ the humans called it. Garrus always found that funny, the vastly different perceptions humans and turians had of that particular blip in their history.

The woman’s eyes roamed the room, pausing on Weaver, who was busy bombarding Vortash and Sidonis with questions about the new shuttle shielding modulators, and Merin talking rapid fire to Krul, who was not listening to a word. “It’s a good group. Dedicated, if a bit… odd. Won’t be able to say much more until I see them in action, though. How’d you dig up Shepard? Didn’t think she was still active.”

“Oh, she dug me up. I blame all of this on her, you know. ‘Get someone to watch your back,’ she said. ‘Get several someones, actually’ she said. So I did.”

Monteague snorted. “Huh. You’re funny, for a turian.”

“You have no idea,” he grumbled.

In his periphery, he saw Shepard’s omni tool ping and she took a call. She beat a hasty retreat upstairs and he pivoted slightly to keep her in his field of vision. Then he stopped, froze really, as he realized that he _always_ kept her in his line of sight.

How long had _that_ been going on?

He found Shepard on the roof. Odd place for her, when so often she liked to be in the thick of things. He’d never known her to miss a party.

She had her legs dangling over the side in a way that made him nervous, though he’d seen her use her biotics to hurl herself out of a third floor window a Krogan back when her biotics weren’t broken. Now it just seemed normal, watching her push herself to the edge of things. He was ruined by her recklessness. She reminded him… well, sometimes she reminded him of Commander Fisher.

Garrus leaned against the pillar to her left and slightly behind, not giving any outward sign that he was ruminating. The roof afforded them a view of the long bridge that that was the only street-level way in and out of the base. Skycars and residence lights winked and danced in and around rounded blocks and massive struts that composed the station. If he turned his head, he could see the ragged edge of Kioko Plaza in all its slummy, human infested glory. It didn’t smell so bad in this part of town, just enough removed from the Gozu slums, especially on the roof where there was open air and ventilation. He wished he could see the sky, any sky. Even the fake sky of the Presidium would have been some sort of comfort. Omega made it kind of hard to forget that you were just a step away from the void.

But still, it was kind of pretty. Especially when it turned Shepard’s narrow frame into a sharp silhouette against the orange haze of a horizon.

“Some party,” she said softly.

“I’m glad they’re getting a chance to-- what was the phrase? ‘Blow off some steam.’” He regretted it as soon as he said it, unsure if he should be referencing that little… joke between them. But Shepard spun on the ledge and hopped down to lean against the low wall of the rooftop, smiling that crooked smile.

“Looks like we’re not the only ones who needed some relief,” she said, low voice soft and holding something secret.

He could smell her from where he stood, all fire and metal, burning bright and needy in his senses. He wanted to cross the distance between them and take her in his arms, pin her hips against the wall. The urge was a basic one, taught and brittle and impossible. He wanted to grab her neck and bend her over the barrier so her head hung into the void. He wanted to hear her laugh at him, urge him on as they chased the adrenaline and a climax, wanted her teasing to turn to begging as he ground into her while she called out his name again and again…

But he rubbed the back of his neck instead.

She looked unwell, losing weight she didn’t have to lose in the first place. His predatory instincts told him she was off-- that she’d been off since getting back from her disastrous gun run to her mysterious contacts. Any turian or krogan would be able to smell the weakness in her, especially if they had known her before, when she was a tight bundle of biotic fury. Now she seemed faded.

“When was the last time you slept?”

“Uh. Yesterday, some time. Sidonis is a tyrant.” She pulled a face, but he knew work wasn’t the only reason she hadn’t been keeping up on sleep. She rushed on. “I-- uh, I got a call from the Professor, with some results about the biotics. It’s my amp. Sort of. I can get it replaced with a bit of effort, but he’s concerned that it won’t really make a difference-- unless we find out what’s going on with my nervous system. The red sand really did a number on me.”

Garrus released the breath he didn’t know he’d been holding. “I’m sorry, Shepard.”

“You saved my life that day, you know?”

“I’m aware.” The memory of her shuddering in his arms, face ashen under her brown skin, lips dry and pale, as he carried her to the car was not something he would be able to forget.

“I don’t know if I ever thanked you,” she said. He stood there helplessly for a moment and only half succeeded in suppressing a whine-- not quite a growl or a keen, but something in between. Words were hard for him-- if a _turian_ was grieving or fearing for their health he would simply comfort them with noises, rumbling deep in his chest and chirps from the back of his throat. That wasn’t really useful, here. Humans used words, talked things out.

But it didn’t look like she wanted to talk. He would do the only thing he knew he was good at. Be useful.

“Shepard, if you need anything, anything at all-- research, backup, an escort to a sketchy black market biotics-doctor…” she flinched and he backtracked.

 _Shit._ What had he said? See, this was why he hated words. He was no good at them, they got away from him, twisted things up...

“This isn’t new, this trouble with biotics,” she sighed. “I’ve been to my fair share of sketchy neurosurgeons and biotic doctors in my life.” He thought of Doctor Heart. He thought of shooting Doctor Heart. He thought of shooting every scumbag bastard with a laser scalpel who had ever laid a hand on her, shooting anyone who had ever hurt her, exploited her…

She studied him for a moment and then crooked a finger. “Come here.” He took a step forward, ready to wrap her in an embrace at the slightest indication, but she turned her back to him and her hands went to the back of her neck, scooping up the dense red fringe that curled from her head in loose spirals, pulling it away from her neck. He looked down and saw her neck, bared to him, and he felt the urge to nuzzle along the long line of her neck, taste her skin, sink his teeth into the meat of her… pin her down and…

_No, Vakarian. Bad Vakarian._

Was he supposed to be looking at something?

His eyes unclouded and he studied the slim neck he had been presented with, mapped the slight jut of the bones of her spine. There were three sets of orderly red scars, tightly spaced and almost identical. They created a line down the back of her neck, intersected by three similar lines at the base. Surgery scars.

He raised his hand to touch, and froze. She had not said he could touch her.

_Spirits, he wanted to to touch her._

“Go ahead,” she said, and he dropped his hand to the back of her neck, tracing the red lines of the thin scars with a blunted talon. Her scent shifted suddenly, hard to what he now knew as _interested._ In him. It was the way she’d smelled when she’d tried to kiss him back on her own roof, above the hanger he hadn't known was there, the little world apart that she kept hidden. “Those are amp surgery scars. Most people who’ve had an L2 amp have scars like this. Depends on the skill of the surgeon, of course.”

“You’ve got three.”

“Yeah.”

His fraught words echoed back to him: _Black market biotics._

“They can do the surgery without the scars now, at least.”

“You’re an L2?” Like Alenko. Did she get headaches? Have brain damage from the poorly executed technology? It might explain her impulse control...

“My first amp. It didn't last long. I’m L3 now. This next one will be my fourth. Maybe I’ll aim for an L4-- those are in development right now. That’ll leave another scar, though-- still experimental.”

He rested his hand on the back of her neck for a moment, his thumb smoothing the wiry red fringe at the nape, and she turned into him so his hand slipped to her throat. He felt the flutter of her pulse so close to the surface and dropped his hand hastily to her shoulder, light and hesitant.

They looked at each other for a moment, and his heart did something funny in his chest just before her lips crashed into his mouth. After a moment of scrambling she got her arms around his neck and he was pressing into her, plates already spreading at the sudden contact. Her tongue, short and muscular and so… alien, sought his and they danced together. She tasted like… yet so unlike _keili_ fruit _,_ addictively sour and overwhelming and he wanted to take a bite. The low vibrations in his chest made her hmmm in response-- curiously hollow but damn if it wasn’t a perfect sound. She was _sucking_ on the edge of his mouth, and he growled, and she moaned, and he boosted her up on the edge of the roof’s containing wall where she had so recently been dangling her feet, and he pressed into her and she clung to him, leaning backwards over the precipice with one arm braced on the low wall, the other wrapping around the small of her back, digging into her waist, massaging the soft place between her ribs and her hips.

Just like he’d wanted.

She pulled away. “Fuck,” she whispered. Her pupils were blown wide against the cool, dark gray of her iris, and he shook his head to clear it of wine and lust and drew her forward so she wasn’t hanging into thin air with nothing but their entangled arms and a little lip of a wall holding her up. “You smell like a rainforest.” She wrinkled her nose. “And taste like wine.”

“You taste like sour _keili_.”

“Sour… what? Gross...” She sounded disgusted and Garrus frowned as she scrubbed a hand over her mouth.

“Gross? Sour is the best...”

“Humans don’t like sour. We like sweet,” she said, shaking her head but he kissed her again, slowly this time, tasting her lips with his tongue before pulling away and humming.

“Sweet? Huh. Can’t really taste sweet all that well. Only if it's... really sweet. Let me tell you, turians really, really like sour.” She shivered at his words in her ear.

“What are you doing later?”

 _You, hopefully. Please, you._ “Clean some gear. Fiddle with mods. Plan how best to bait our next strike against the Suns smuggling. Do some calibrations. ”

“Calibrations?” Her eyebrow shot sky high. “How about another round of sparring?”

“Sudden death again?”

“I’m thinking best of three,” she said, and her face split into a grin.

~~~

They didn’t go back to her place. He didn’t bring it up, and she didn’t offer. They could have used the the bedroom at Base, but with a party in full swing and with this whole _thing_ they were doing being so new, Garrus didn’t offer, either.

Instead, he rejoined the party. He had to. The boss needed to be seen, drinking and laughing, before making his excuses to Butler and Sidonis, who seemed to have things well in hand. He could feel Sidonis’ eyes on his back as he left through the tunnels on the lower level, felt him rumble. Every turian in the room knew where he was going.

He met her at a seedy hotel just a few blocks away, in a dim room, with a bed and a chair and a lamp. She wasn’t wearing her commando gear anymore, just a pair of compression shorts and that tight chest thing, her waist bare. Did she know how explicitly sexual that was to him? He doubted it. He might explain it to her, one day.

The door shut behind him and he found himself pressed up against it by the force of her embrace, her fingers already at the back of his neck, below his fringe where his neck plates gave way to soft hide, the place that made his brain go sideways when she touched him there, dug her little nails in, dragged her fingers across his skin.

She kissed him and he growled, and she laughed.

Everything was tight and vibrating, each move restrained to keep his enthusiasm from causing real damage. Because, Spirits, the damage Garrus could do. Touching her sex, plunghing his fingers deep inside her as she writhed in his lap had been one of the most terrifying moments of his life, not knowing if it would hurt her, if his heavy talons were blunt enough, not knowing if she would have a reaction…

Her tongue on his throat brought him back to the present. She bit at his neck and he was surprised by how strong her teeth were, made a pleased, hungry sound deep in his chest. His kind thought humans weak, but the woman currently laving his throat with her mouth was anything but. Her fingers were _clever,_ made for prying and pinching, small manipulations, and they found the little gaps in his plates and traced delicate patterns on his hide. Nature made her teeth for crushing and grinding and he keened as she bit down again on his throat.

He stepped forward to the bed, her feet skimming along the floor as he lifted her by her bared waist and tossed her there to bounce slightly. He didn’t take off his clothes-- light armor today, but instead caged her, biting down gently on her naked shoulder and she stilled, groaning.

The noises she could make…

He took off his gloves, and set them aside as she watched him, her fringe-- her _hair_ fanned and spiraling around her head in loose curls. He touched one, unsure, but needing to feel the texture, to know it was real. He didn’t know if touching her hair was something he was allowed to do, something that humans liked. Preening a turian’s fringe was an act of deep intimacy, but everything was backwards or missing when it came to intimacy with humans. Or maybe it was just Shepard who was backwards, missing pieces. 

“What do you want?” He asked. She bit her lip through a smile, looking… sly, was the only word he could come up with to describe it, and reached over the side of the bed. He watched her curiously as she withdrew a medkit.

“I’ve got a metric ton of antihistamines, an epipen for me and whatever the turian equivalent is for you, and I’ve got the Professor’s clinic on emergency dial. And I… uh… got this cream. To help with the chafing.”

Garrus inspected the contents. “Shepard, you’ve got enough antihistamines here to knock out a charging krogan.”

She shrugged as he examined the supplies. They were being risky, but so far neither of them had showed signs of severe allergic reaction: Shepard just suffered some minor skin irritation.

And she had cream.

He returned her grin with one of his own. “What did you have in mind?”

The smile grew wider. “Do Turians have oral sex?” He suspected she already knew the answer. Anyone who’d so much as glanced as a Fornax mag would have, anyway.

Garrus’ mandibles flared widely. “Yes,” he said cautiously. "Of course."

“I mean, I dunno. I've seen Fornax, but, with your teeth and all. Do… _you_ like having oral sex?”

“Yes…” he said again. His hands were roaming her body as they spoke, and he gripped her waist. She was taught and squirming under him, so….un-turian, and he felt his plates shift just from getting to touch her skin again. 

She sat up, crowding him backwards and then tapped the cowl of his armor. “Off,” she said. “You’re going first.” He righted himself and his hands went to the seals and buckles of his armor, shucking each piece and putting it aside. He undressed slowly this time-- his hands steady instead of near shaking as they had been when he’d stripped for her back in her hangar.

Nice place, that hangar, all piecemeal and cobbled together. Some places had a sense of history to them, and Shepard’s home was heavy with it...

She didn’t want to talk about it.

His mind shied away.

Her hands were on him now, helping him with his undersuit and helping him forget that he had so many questions. He shrugged out of the top as she attacked the spur-sleeves on his legs, getting tangled and groaning in frustration.

“Your clothes make no sense,” she sighed.

“Tell me about it,” he griped back. “We aren’t really built for… clothes. They're a modern invention for turians-- partially because of the advent of space travel, and partially because walking around naked on the Citadel really scandalized the galactic community.”

“So, you do it to spare us aliens the sight. Do turians go naked on your homeworlds?”

He was shifting further at the sight of her on her hands and knees, frustrated by his clothes, his cock begging to come out as she slipped his bottoms off his hips

“Only in private, and for special occasions, and only if you’re very traditional about it all. Births, weddings, funerals,” he said. “Too many aliens in public. Besides, when your guests have to wear hazmat suits for the radiation, it’s rude to flaunt your plates.”

“Well, that explains turians’ terrible sense of style.”

“Hey,” he growled, helping her untangle the opening behind his leg. “I’m very stylish.”

“Uh huh. You’re a one hit wonder with that armor of yours.”

“Shepard…”

“You know, I don’t think I’ve seen you in anything else… Naked, or in that armor. That's it. Do you even _own_ any civies?”

“Shepard…” Her hands were at his plates now, gliding up and down the slight seem he was using all of his will to keep closed because _Spirits, it felt so good…_ Something was bothering him though. “What the hell is a ‘one hit wonder’? Sounds dangerou--nnnnggg.”

Baffling human idioms were driven from his mind as she leaned forward and he felt her warm breath on his plates, begging to open, and ran her tongue along his seam, starting between his legs and following the line _up_. She looked up at him with what he’d come to recognize as a wicked smile and his hands spasmed on her shoulders.

“How was that?”

“I’ve literally never felt anything like it,” he groaned. “Do it again... “

She did, and his plates slid open a fraction. Her tongue took advantage. She began lapping at the hard opening, hands braced on the bed as he stood before her, trying not to simply grab her face and press it more deeply into his sheath.

Instead he pulled way. “Reaction?” She shook her head and grabbed his hip, pulling him back and for a while Garrus lost his words. His plates were wide now, revealing his sheath and the tip of his cock hidden within. Her head was bobbing along, that tongue exploring every nook and cranny but it was so short… getting head from a turian essentially meant a tongue fucking, the long appendage buried in and wrapped around his cock. But Shepard’s mouth couldn’t do such a thing, could only explore the outside.

But then she did something that he’d never felt before. He didn’t even have a word for that sensation.

“Fu-fuck, Shepard, what the hell was…”

She pulled away, a little frown creasing her brow. “Bad?”

“Fuck no, just… different.”

She smiled slowly, her face slick with his fluids, and she licked her lips. Spirits, she was beautiful, the sharp line of her jaw, and the cut of her cheekbones cast in shadow from the lone lamp in the corner of the room...

“That, Vakarian, is what the human mouth can do that a turian mouth can’t. Suction.”

Spirits. He was going out of his fucking mind. “You’re going to need to demonstrate this ‘suction’ thing again,” he said with a growl, his hand at the back of her head, guiding her back to his sheath. Her mouth got to work and… ahh, she was sucking on the tip of his cock, her lips dancing around the sweet folds of flesh that pillowed it, slipping her tongue into his sheath as far as it would go and circling his cock before returning to sucking. His cock started to slip out, begging for more and it felt so good it _hurt_. But he couldn’t let his cock slip out… that was definitely a recipe for disaster, because _sharp teeth_ but with the way she was sucking on him, begging him with her mouth there was no way he could stay sheathed.

“I can’t… Shepard, this is…. Fuck, I can’t stay sheathed…” He noted distantly through the weight of pleasure that he sounded close to panic.

“It’s okay…” she mumbled into him, “It’s okay, V. C’mon. C’mon out.” She pressed her face into his sheath again, licking and sucking, swirling her clever, aggressive tongue around the head of his cock and then he went nonverbal, growling low as his cock slipped out of its seat in his sheath, seamlessly and directly into the wet, tight heat of her mouth.

She jerked made a noise that sounded like _girk_ deep in her throat and Garrus tried to pull away again, but she held him there so he stilled, sighing deeply into the feeling of his cock… not just inside her, but inside her mouth.

She moaned around him, pressing her face into his plates and his hands convulsed on her shoulders, the back of her neck, his chest rumbling and groaning with deep pleasure at the slithering transition his cock made from one kind of tightness to another.

He’d never felt anything like it.

He could feel every swallow and contraction of her palate, her throat tight around the tip of him. Teeth grazed his cock and he shivered at the thought of it… but she wasn’t turian and those teeth wouldn’t hurt him unless she meant them to and she was pure softness otherwise and ohhhh Spirits. His hands convulsed again, and he felt soft, fine… hair, he was gripping her hair and rocking her face back and forth down his rigged length, started to writhe in her mouth and he heard her choke and he tried to pull away with a rush of concern as he saw the bulge of his cock in her throat…. but she grabbed his hips again, clinging to him as she redoubled her efforts, moaning deep into the root of him.

Pleasure soaked, he felt the bright heat of an orgasm speeding from within his core to throb into his cock and she kept going, deeper, with more suction and bright lights burst behind his eyes and everything blue shifted, like taking relay jump with malfunctioning motion dampers. He lost orientation, up was down and all that tethered him was the feeling of her mouth around his cock as he cried out-- Spirits did he say her name? He couldn’t remember. He throbbed hard, once, twice and then he collapsed to his hands, leaning on the bed and shuddering through the aftershocks as she pulled her mouth off him.

“You okay, big guy?” Her voice was hoarse.

His eyes were clamped shut, breathing hard and there was a baseline whine coming from deep in his sub vocals.

If she was turian she wouldn’t have asked if he was okay. She would have heard the whine and known he was… better than fine. That noise meant only one thing.

“Never.. better…” he breathed through the aftermath of his orgasm. He cracked his eyes open and was stunned by the sight of her, leaning back on her hands with her mouth swollen and gleaming with his fluids. She was breathing hard, hair mussed where he had his hands buried in it. She was… beautiful.

“Your mouth…” he breathed, and she rubbed a hand across her lips. “That’s not…” He took a shuddering breath, “an allergic reaction, is it?”

She shook her head, grinning. “Maybe a mild one.”

“Shepard…”

“It’s fine.”

He was nowhere near recovered from that….what had that… it must have been a dream because it was so dirty and raw, so fantastically intense that he couldn’t have done anything but imagine it.

But nah. He wasn't that creative. He’d never been able to dream that big. Not in his wildest.

Now she was taking off her weird, tight top-- bra, she’d called it, and then she started wriggling out of her shorts and in an instant he was on her, crowding her space and claiming it as her own so she was forced to crawl back until he had her pressed to the headboard. He wrenched the shorts the rest of the way off of her legs and tossed them aside and she half laughed, half gasped as he began to explore her body with his nose and his mouth, taking in her taste and smell and committing it to memory. He hadn’t been able to enjoy her like this the first time: he’d been too worried about how her body works and if he was going to hurt her, or if _she_ was going to hurt _him_ to pay attention to the little details of her, now fully naked. He huffed in at her neck, and then nuzzled down her shoulder as her fingers set to exploring his fringe and his neck, his shoulders, anywhere she could reach. He nipped at her breasts and she moaned. He licked her, but he wasn’t stopping at her chest. His tongue dragged down her long torso, drinking in the tight ripple of muscle at her abdomen and the narrow jut of her hips, biting until she squirmed away, shrieking.

“Christ, stop! That fucking tickles!” She was laughing, trying to jerk away, and he grabbed her by her hips and pinned her there so he could finish his examination even as his visor spat out the definition of the word “tickle.” _Tickle. Ticklish. Tickling. A nervous system response to pressure and sensation on the skin that causes involuntary laughter and the urge to escape._

Little bumps erupted on her skin.

Sprits, humans were so responsive. She was _so_ responsive.

He growled and mapped her waist, the little divot in her belly that seemed to lead nowhere when he stuck his tongue there and she shrieked again, wriggling. She was _ticklish_.

“I swear to god, Vakarian!”

His head snapped up, and his claws tightened on her hips, eyes heavy with warning. He felt like a feral varren, posturing over a fresh kill.

_Mine. Mine to explore, to take apart, to put back together. Mine._

She fell silent, stilled, a slow grin spreading and he growled in satisfaction before dropping his head to continue his investigation of her midriff. This time he was less gentle-- it seemed light touches ticked her made her squirm so he scrapped and dragged along her skin instead, until he got to the dark curls between her thighs. Her legs fell open and his hands, then his face got to exploring the tender skin there, saturated with the scent of her sex-- what had she called it, her cunt? His tongue slipped out to taste up her thigh, his muzzle following with nuzzles and a nip or two that caused another shriek and then he was at the juncture of her thighs.

He froze, gazing at her sex. Her cunt. So different, yet not so different from a turian woman. The bud of nerves for pleasure was there, and the basic mechanics of fucking, of penetration, were the same, but she had no plates, just folds where turian women had none, and his tongue, long and prehensile snaked out to taste them.

Sour _keili,_ among other things. Musk. Skin. Human. She inhaled sharply and he tasted her again, his long tongue seeking her clit, and he explored the folds of her, letting his tongue roam her sex until she was pressed into the bed, hands seeing purchase on his neck and _moaning_.

He growled into her and she pressed her cunt into his mouth to feel the sensation, and he did it again and she swore, fingers digging into the hide on his neck in a way he could _really_ get used to and then his tongue entered her tight, wet heat, and this, _this was familiar._ His tongue worked its way more deeply inside, and she rocked back and forth, one of her hands going to tease her nipple. He growled and his hand followed hers, digging into the soft flesh there, finding her nipple and tugging, applying pressure with the point of his talon until she was gasping his name, interspersed with the word “fuck” and “harder” and “please.”

He obliged.

He was making her beg. He was making her moan his name. Well, “Vakarian.” His tongue drove her, curling into that spot she’d shown him inside, on the front wall of her cunt that was rough and made her scream as he built up a rhythm and he wished she was screaming “Garrus” and not “Vakarian” but he’d take what he could get.

He obliged. He obliged until she was coming hard, clenching around his tongue and he could feel every spasm as he laved that secret spot, riding her movements as her hips jerked against his face and his talons dug into her breast, hard. He licked every last spasm from her until she stilled, arms spread wide above her head. Slowly, he withdrew, licking her folds again, then her thighs, red and chaffed before starting his slow way back up her body.

“Your mandibles tickle,” she said, her voice soft and dreamy sounding, very un-Shepard like. She didn’t praise him, though, tell him it felt good, and he didn’t need verbal validation. He could _smell_ her pleasure.

“I think you’re just generally ticklish,” he said into her bellybutton, feeling smug as he smiled, mandibles brushing her skin. She squirmed and he moved on, up to her chest.

“Don’t your dare tell anyone.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.” He was at her neck, and she dipped her head, catching him in a kiss. She could taste herself on his mouth, he knew, and let his tongue slide into her, wrapping around the short tongue that was so alien, making her moan again. He growled in return, and felt his cock twitch with need. If she’d been turian, they would have been done, but she was pressing herself against him, one slim hand seeking his cock and stroking as she hummed contentment into his mouth.

He needed to stop thinking that thing, that “if she was turian” thing. She wasn’t and never would be, and this was just blowing off steam, and...

“Again,” she murmured, their bodies seeking contact, awkward and fumbling as they flinched away from the places where she was too soft, or he was too hard. His cowl, the crest of his sternum dug into her chest, or his spurs dug into her calves, and she’d wince or laugh through pain, but they continued doggedly, exchange kisses and noises of pleasure or discomfort, all the while her hand working his cock until he started to feel not just sensual, not just like touching, but like he wanted to sink his teeth in and…

He sat up when her legs went around his waist, drawing her with him, their hips grinding, and his cock pressing up the cleft in her ass getting his slick everywhere as her sex spread its own wetness against his abdomen. She made a curious sound as his cock rubbed the cleft of her ass, and he wanted to press into her there… but no, too soon for them to try _that_ particular form fucking, but he squeezed her ass, pulling her buttocks outward so his cock could get closer... She laughed. Suspended by her arms and legs clinging to him, Garrus rose from the bed, supporting her ass as he walked forward, lifting her slightly until his cock slipped forward. She gasped as he pressed her against the wall, one hand still on her ass, the other at her throat as he lowered her down, his cock seeking the tight heat of her sex while his body bore down against the wall, trapping her. She rolled her hips and he growled and sunk his teeth into her shoulder just hard enough to bruise and they started to fuck with her pressed against the wall, fast and hard until he felt her come around his cock this time, that alien, intoxicating sensation of squeeze and release as she lost control of her muscles and her voice, crying out into his cowl and…. She was fucking _trembling_. He gripped her as she bucked in his arms and continued to grind into her sex without slowing. She gasped and stuttered, perhaps his name, perhaps nonsense, but definitely begging for more, choking back moans until he felt his own climax rise up and release. She felt it too, and her muscles tightened around him again and again as they came together, hard and merciless.

“Shepard?” He was panting hard, braced against the wall with arms to either side of her head. She had her head back against the wall, her arms loosely around him, and she made a small hmmm as she slithered to the floor, but she swayed, looking for all the world like she was drunk.

Had he gone too far? She leaned into him, smiling faintly but still _shaking._ With a growl she was scooped off her feet again with an undignified squeak, and he carried her to the bed and laid her down, gently this time. She shuddered and lay still, arms spread and chest rising and falling rapidly, making it easy to study her. His eyes traced the welts that were forming across her chest from his talons.

“You’ve got marks. Here,” he said, and searched around until he found the tube of cream, some kind of steroidal ointment, and she opened her eyes to looked down at her chest with a small “huh,” as he fumbled with the cap.

“Thanks,” she said, reaching for the tube, but he shook his head.

“Let me.”

She watched him for a moment before letting her hand drop and he knelt on the bed by her side and squeezed some of the medication on a talon, reached out to brush it against her skin. She flinched, and he froze, waiting to see if she’d tell him to stop.

“Cold,” was all she muttered.

She’d come prepared for this. Steroids and antihistamines were easy to get, sure, but she’d _planned._ She’d been thinking about him. A deep, low rumble was starting up in his chest, a post sex purr of deep satisfaction he could no more stop at will than he could quit breathing.

He smoothed the thick cream against the redness around her breasts, the lines he’d drawn on her, traced them up her neck and down her belly, across her shoulders. Her skin was so responsive under his hands and he soothed the redness, watched it dissipate with cooling relief under his touch.

His talons paused as rolled on her side, watching her taut, honed muscles bunch and release with fascination. _Flexible._ He saw the thin red scars just under her hair, along with the newer welts from where he’d clawed her back when his cock was buried in her mouth and then her cunt.

“Thanks,” she muttered again when he finished, and settled on her back, with eyes closed. She yawned.

Suddenly Garrus wished Weaver would call again, to disrupt what was coming next. What were they supposed to do now? Turians had casual sex all the time, but generally not with humans. As a rule, turians didn’t spend much time with their lovers after sex, unless they were bonding, or thinking about bonding.

He was purring though, and that _worried_ him.

She reached out a hand, tugging him close. “Sorry it’s not a turian friendly bed,” she mumbled. Her voice was hoarse, sleepy, and she sighed as he settled next to her, on his side, feeling tense. The smell of her was infecting his brain, making him feel protective and feral, and fuck it, _needy._ Her hands began to wander, and Garrus signed into the sensation of her clever little fingers exploring his carapace. She was exhausted, a slight tremble in her hands as she traced the ropy, bone woven edge of his cowl.

“Sleep,” he said, and his heart wrenched hard as he said it. But he said it. “I’ll wake you if anything comes up.”

“Mmm,” she was going to protest, but he pressed closer, slipping his arm under her waist pressing his nose into her neck and her hand ceased its wandering, coming to curl around the lip of his cowl. He was uncomfortable in the bed, spur digging awkwardly into the mattress, but there was no way he was walking away from this. He wouldn’t move again until she woke for anything sort of a crisis.

She was so… small. It was hard to believe this tiny, naked human was the same warrior, the same force of nature on the battlefield, but he studied her in the dim light, saw the slight folds around her mouth, the hint of forking wrinkles caused by laughter at the corner of her eyes and the perpetual line between her brows, saw the determination in her face even as she drifted.

“Oh my gods,” her voice was small and far away against his chest, breath warm and… tickling skin and plate.

“What is it?” He peered at her, suddenly concerned.

“You’re purring.”

“Yeah,” he said, trying to keep the painful mixture of wryness and tenderness from his voice. _Fly casual, buddy. Take it easy._ “That… uh… happens sometimes.” Just brilliant.

She murmured something unintelligible, and he felt her relax. The rumble in his chest carried on without his consent, humming her to sleep.

Garrus was fucked.


	14. Keep the Customers Satisfied

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you read this today (5/31) the end of the chapter after Garrus talks to Sidonis might be worth another re-read as I edited it for Reasons.

**Shepard**

She dreamed of blue.

_The fire is cold, singing along her nerves and and making her feel endless, boundless. Nym is free. She flows from place to place, almost a vapor, just trails of blue fire crackling in her wake. She isn’t fighting, but dancing, moving just for the pure exhilaration of it, and it feels right._

_She isn’t even a solid being anymore, just a creature of blue and fire._

_Something solid is in her way. A wall. A tree. A void of stars. It is impassable. She gathers her biotics and begins to hum a little song, something from a forgotten childhood, taking mincing steps on the ledge, the branch, the precipice, like a dancer on point, and she takes a step off the ledge and lets herself fall._

_The sensation of a biotic charge is the feeling of freefall, of winking into another state of being for just a moment. It is how she explains the charge to people trying to learn it. You walk up to the ledge, you hang from the branch, you lean into the void and then you… let go._

_You freefall._

_But you know you aren’t going to hit the ground because there is no ground below you, only void, and you won’t fall forever in the void because your nerve, your very will itself controls dark energy and you can quite literally fly._

_Shepard embraces the feeling of falling. She lets herself fly._

_But nothing happens. She’s falling and there is nothing happening, no catch, no hook, no amount of will can make the falling stop. There is no blue, no song of fire along her nerves and she’s racing towards something big and solid and is definitely going to kill her if she hits it. Not if. When._

_She panics. Her arms windmill wildly as if she’s trying to catch an updraft or reverse her trajectory like gravity is just a concept that does not apply-- (intrusive thought: it used to be just a concept) and the ground is still rushing up towards her, and it’s staring back at her and knows her name and with a scream of rage at the audacity of the ground being there, she tries to wrap herself in blue and…._

_Someone groans. Someone snarls._

Biotics crackled across her skin as she sat bolt upright and awake, fists clenched and bare chest heaving. Sweat drenched she cast around wildly for a moment still feeling like she’s falling, or maybe hit the ground but there is no pain and she’s not dead. Probably.

She saw him first from the corner of her eye, crouched, a predator making a defensive posture that was verging on “I’m about to jump you and rip you to shreds,” massive shoulders hunched into his cowl, teeth bared in a snarl that froze her on pure instinct.

It wasn’t the sort of predatory look that had sent chills through her last night, crouched over her body like a lion over a fresh kill. It was another sort of look altogether, one that screamed death. Imminent. For her.

So that’s what fight or flight looked like on a turian. She swallowed, hard.

“Vakarian?”

He blinked, shook his head, visibly relaxed, and his visor sprang to life, and it was just Vakarian again, naked and hauling himself up off the floor. “Spirits, Shepard. If you wanted me to sleep on the couch you could have just asked.”

There was no couch in the room. She still couldn’t really get words out around the adrenaline, to tell him so, and Vakarian rubbed a hip spur as he came to the edge of the bed.

“Shit…” she breathed. “Shit, Vakarian, did I just... flare?”

“Yep. You pack a hell of a punch.” His head tilted and she saw the flat of his nose flare, scenting. “You’re bleeding.”

Shepard sniffed and felt the telltale wetness, tasted blood. She pressed a finger to her nose and it came away red. She shivered.

“Typical,” she muttered. “I’m sorry. I’m probably not the safest person to be sleeping around.”

“Does this happen a lot?”

“Used to. Malfunctioning amps do funny things to your head.” She avoided his eyes, casting around for something to mop her nose with. Vakarian padded to the bathroom and she heard the water run for a moment. She tilted her head up to keep the blood from dripping on the blankets and a moment later she felt the mattress sag as three hundred pounds naked turian sat next to her. She reached out blindly and felt the damp cloth meet her hand, her fingers brushing talons. She wiped the blood from her face.

“Just gotta sit still until the bleeding stops,” she muttered.

Nothing to do but sit there staring at the ceiling. She needed to get her amp taken care of… but if her nerves would just reject the adjustment she might actually have to find a specialist. She needed to talk to Aria.

But she didn’t want to think about Aria, or biotics right now.

Vakarian was nearby but not close enough to touch. She felt him hesitate, frozen on the bed. He probably didn’t want to offend her by getting the hell out, and wasn’t sure how to leave. How little he knew about her-- how difficult it was to disappoint her, really. He should just go, let her bleed in peace.

“I don’t think I’ll explode or anything, but I won’t blame you if you want to get out of here. I’ll be fine.”

Then she heard him… was that a chirp? And then she felt talons wrap around her biceps and he pulled her towards him. “Vakarian…” she said through the towel.

“It’s late, Shepard.” It made her feel dizzy to be pulled against someone’s chest wrapped in… a hug. When was the last time she’d hugged someone? Ceria, of course. She wasn’t really on hugging terms with many other people in the Galaxy. Vakarian wasn’t really hugging her, though, more just… supporting her as she waited out the nosebleed. She could move if she wanted to. He wasn’t restraining her, but there was a certain insistence in the gesture. Her head tilted back against his cowl, and her forehead came to press against his mandible. His arms were long-- long even for being over six and a half feet tall. One wrapped around her shoulders, the other snaked around her waist. She could feel a deep thrumm coming from him, rumbling at her back and he was furnace-hot and she felt all her muscles sigh into his heat.

He was strangely comfortable, despite the odd bit of plate digging in. She shifted a bit, and he hummed, loosening his arms, but she settled back and pulled the cloth from her face. Still bleeding. She pinched her nose and relaxed into his arms. Vakarian took the towel from her and used the corner around her nose, and she had a flash of memory of his talons tearing at her skin, but then later, gentle as they applied the steroid ointment to her skin.

_Of all the people I had to have a roll with, I had to find one with a caretaking fetish._

Her nosebleed stopped eventually, but they sat there for a long time in silence until she thought he had fallen asleep again, with his head propped sideways with his arms around her, and her sprawled against his chest so his nose was buried in her hair and she could feel each breath tickle her scalp. She didn’t move, just took slow deep breaths and cataloged the sensations he provided: heat, a sense of containment, plates an odd mixture of rough and smooth, like nothing so much as fiberglass, though it was a crude comparison for something so organic and beautiful. Nothing about him was soft, yielding, and yet he was gentle, careful, and… the word rose into her mind again. Beautiful.

Had she always though turians were beautiful, or was it just _him_? She shifted to try and get a better look at him, and his arms tightened into a possessive hug, a deep growl humming from his chest into her back as his nose thrust into her hair and he nuzzled her. She was never going to get over the turian nuzzling thing.

“I don’t know how turians sleep, but humans usually lie down,” she said, inching out of his arms to roll onto her side. His eyes were lazy, slow, as he looked her over, the purr rumbling more deeply now.

“Damn human shaped bed,” he griped after a moment, but he was already lying down, hands insistent on her waist as he pulled her closer again. He traced the puffy, just-healed scar from the stab wound on her midriff, before sliding down her hip and then up again. She wondered if he was feeling her skin and making his own comparisons. She hoped he had more favorable comparisons than “fiberglass” for her.

What had he said she tasted like? Sour _keili?_ She added it to the list of things to look up, along with turian testicles and if turians were ticklish and how to make make a human bed comfortable for turian fringes and spurs, and what the hell that chirp he made meant.

“I’ll make sure to get more pillows next time,” she said, and his eyes snapped from where they had been roaming over her body to lock with hers.

“Next time?”

She half smiled, not quite showing teeth. His hands were in her hair and she was finding it hard to breathe. “Sure,” she managed.

His fingers teased out her curls, and it felt so nice that she didn’t have the heart to tell him it was going to make her hair a wild mess once they actually got out of bed. She’d deal with her hair later. In the morning.

His mandibles flared into a little half smile, flashing teeth. “Looking forward to it. The pillows I mean.”

“Uh huh. The pillows.”

“Oh, you know me. Apparently I’ve got fixation on soft things.” His hand was on her ass.

“Excuse you, I am not soft!”

His grin widened slightly. “A little vain there, Shepard,” Vakarian drawled, looking a little too smug. “I was thinking about the pillows.” She knew that look. That was his “I just stole a killshot” look.

She harrumphed into his chest and he laughed, deep and amused. A moment later she followed with her own cuckle. She could feel his subvocals vibrate into her and she was glad that turians laughed much the way humans did.

She slipped her arm around his waist.

They were quiet for a moment, and then he said, “But you are.”

“I’m what?”

“Soft.”

She poked him, and he caught her wrist in his hand and he was on top of her and his crest pressed to her forehead in a turian kiss and then their mouths met in a human kiss and there was nothing soft about it.

 

~~~

**Garrus**

Garrus interfaced with the security door and let Krul’s software do the hard work. Sidonis and Sensat flanked him, fully armored, complete with helmets to hide their features.

With a chirp the security sensor on the door flashed green, and then flickered to yellow and then back green again.

“Oscillating the signal,” Sensat said from over his shoulder. “Clever.” The door would be read as both open and closed to any systems monitoring access, and Krul’s hack resolved the binary contradiction with a default of “closed,” so anyone watching the scanners would never even get a report that the door had been opened.

“Don’t say that to Krul,” he muttered. “It’ll go right to his head.”

The compound was typical of Omega from the outside: folded into a towering structure of patched bulkhead that formed one of the station’s many arms. But when the three turians slipped inside, it was as if they had stepped onto another planet.

Khar'shan, to be exact.

And not just any pad on Kar’shan, but the most lushly appointed set of apartments Garrus had ever seen, which was saying something, given that he was the son of a man who was twelfth in line for Primarch of Palaven. Maybe it was less now… Garrus had stopped counting a few years ago. Regardless, Garrus had seen his share of lavish homes-- though Turians tended to be more austere than Batarians by a few hundred thousand AUs.

This home was seemingly swathed in fabrics, every surface painted with gilt and intricate filigree. The furniture was heavy, low to the ground and plush. There was even real wood. Garrus wasn’t sure of when he’d last seen real hardwood-- probably not since he’d left the Citadel, certainly. Every detail spoke of wealth and power and vanity.

They passed a door, and Sensat paused, peering at the security cam footage that displayed what lay beyond. “Slave holdings,” she whispered, and Sidonis growled. Sensat had been waiting for months to go after Tarak… and she was going to get distracted by slaves _now_?

“Not what we’re here for,” Garrus said with a shake of his head. It one of the reasons why he hadn’t brought Shepard, actually. He had a mission, and it didn’t involve liberating slaves this time. Shepard might have complained, but Sensat just grunted and stalked on, her helmet pointed ever forward, head down between tense shoulders in an aggressive posture.

“Schematics say Tarak’s sleeping quarters are up a level. Sensat, take point and follow the nav. I’ll hold our six.” That left Sidonis free to maneuver either way, depending on where they met resistance.

“Our six?” Sidonis’ voice cracked over the comm. “You’ve been spending too much time with the human, Archangel.” He didn’t need to specify which human.

“Mind on the mission, Sidonis,” Garrus growled back. “We can argue about idioms and xenolinguistics later.”

“I don’t like this,” Sensat muttered, peering around a corner before gesturing an all-clear. “We should have met guards by now…”

A door opened as if on cue and the three of them slammed into cover as a guard in Blue Suns armor open fired, screaming, “Intruder!” Sensat shot him with her rifle and they moved on, as the compound slowly woke to their presence. Bullets thunked into the painting above Garrus’ head and he grinned at the thought of how expensive it probably was.

There was something to be said for working with an all-turian crew, and Garrus felt a wave of homesickness. They all defaulted to turian-military hand codes, and knew just how to cover each other, taking ground one bloody inch as a time, before holding position so the next from the back could inch up. It was well oiled, and the guards were dead in a matter of seconds.

Garrus signaled his squad onward and gave the three guards a once over with his omnitool, implementing the credit skimming hack Sidonis had shared with him before following on their six.

“Move!” There was also nothing more satisfying than a turian commando charge. The three of them ate ground at a dead run, fighting up a flight of stairs and down a long hall lined with priceless statues that shattered in their wake from stray bullets and taking cover behind display cases and pedestals. There was also nothing better than the sound of shattering ceramics and being the point of calm in a sea of chaos. Garrus loved a good firefight in an inappropriate setting. Kind of like fighting in an antique shop.

The door at the end of the hall lead to Tarak’s quarters. Sidonis was hacking the door on one knee, fingers flying in a panic as Sensat took point and Garrus covered the hall.

“Remember, we execute Tarka and then we’re out the window and into the get-away. No looting, and don’t engage once Tarak is dead.”

The door sprung open and something exploded.

For a moment all Garrus saw was bright light, and then pain seared across his arms and chest as his armor began to warp. He staggered, found his footing, and slammed into cover.

“Heavy weapons!” Sensat was alive at least. Sidonis’ vitals were still online, but the man’s heart rate was spiking. Garrus took aim through the smoke with his Mantis, his visor pinging heat signatures.

“In his own house? This guy’s crazy.”

“I _told_ you that, Arch! He’s a fucking maniac.”

Garrus inhaled, held his breath, and pulled the trigger. His target dropped, wisps of smoke curling around him as it began to clear. The room was massive and was even more gratuitous than the rest of the compound: it was a sitting area lined with mirrors and displays of weapons and armor, complete with a wet bar and what Garrus could only describe as a stage. Room dividers half concealed a massive bed. Garrus’ visor picked up several life signs all huddled in a corner, and then he saw a wild head of hair peek around a divan, and nodded to Sensat.

“Search the room, and try not to scare the slaves,” he snapped, and then went to see if his other squadmate could walk. Sidonis lay slumped against the wall, bleeding sluggishly from a ragged hole in his armor and Garrus pumped his suit with medigel and Sidonis groaned. He hauled the other man to his feet, and held his shoulder as Sidonis steadied himself. “Frag grenade to the gut,” he growled. Garrus whined his concern, but Sidonis shook his head, his subvocals telling Garrus to back off. “I’ll be fine.”

“Tarak is gone.” Garrus’ head snapped around. That was a human voice. One of the slaves, a woman, stood protectively in front of two others, an asari and a batarian, who crouched at her feet. The woman was brown, and had the same sort of fringe as Shepard did, curly and thick, wild.

“Gone?” Sensat was approaching the three women carefully. They all wore robes, and even through his helmet's filters Garrus could smell sex on them. “He has bolt holes all over this compound.” Garrus approached, and the woman took a step back, holding up her hands. “We don’t want trouble.”

“We can get you out,” he said. The window was their escape plan, but if Tarak had already gone… maybe they could break out some slaves and the evening wouldn’t be a total wash.

“No,” the woman said, and the batarian nodded. Sensat took a step forward and Garrus whined again, confused. Wouldn’t they… want to leave?

“Look, we’ve got money, resources. We can get you somewhere safe.”

“No,” the woman said again. “Do you know what it would be like out there… for us? As former slaves? It’s safer here. It’s better.” She didn’t sound confused. She stood staunchly.

“Don’t waste our time, Sensat,” Sidonis growled. Garrus’ head snapped around to the door. “In fact, we should shoot them and be done with it. They’ve seen us, and they don’t want to escape. We don’t really have--”

“What?” Garrus growled. He couldn’t believe what he’d just heard.

“Arch, they’ve _seen us._ This wasn’t part of the plan.”

“Tarak getting away wasn’t a part of the plan either. I’ll chalk upp the garbage you’re spewing to the pain addling your brain, soldier,” Garrus growled, taking a step towards Sidionis, who’s chin raised a fraction. “We’re wearing helmets. They’re unarmed, innocent.”

“They’ve _seen_ us.”

Garrus growled deep in his chest, feeling his fringe shift inside his helmet as Sidonis continued to challenge his command.

Sensat’s voice snapped over the comm. “Hate to interrupt the fringe measuring competition, but we’ve got reinforcements!” Garrus was dimly aware of the pain burning across his arm and chest from the frag grenade, but he grabbed Sidonis and shoved him to the window. “Out the window, now. Mission aborted.” It hurt worse than the burning pain in his arm to say it, and to leave the women behind, but with his and Sidonis’ injuries, there was no other call to make.

He hated leaving those slave women. He hated leaving the other slaves back down in the holding room they had passed. He hated not being able to pursue Tarak, knowing that this hideout would be cleaned out and empty by the time he was ready to strike again in a day or two, and Tarak would be even harder to get at. Not to mention that Sensat would probably be furious that her entire reason for joining Archangel had escaped her once again... but there was no other option.

The three of them clambered out the window and dropped onto the roof, running as best they could with Sidonis’ injuries slowing them down, before the curve of the building took them out of the line of fire from the compound.

A block later, Vortash met them with a shuttle, and radioed Butler that they were going to need medical attention back at Base.

It was the first time an Archangel mission had failed. It had also been Garrus’ only run with an all turian cew. While he didn’t want to confuse correlation with causation, his instincts told him that maybe there was something to an interspecies team after all.

 

~~~

 

**Shepard**

People were talking about Archangel. Or at least people were _speculating_ about Archangel.

Shepard had heard some wild theories in the past month, each more amusing than the last: that Archangel was a crew of ex-Specters. Archange was a bunch of power-hungry mercs out for blood and money. Archangel was a group of drell hired by the Hanar to take over the station. Archangel was a playboy billionaire moonlighting as a vigilante. Archangel was Aria.

The last one had made her snort a sip of beer right up her nose.

Today, Shepard sat at Lem’s noodle stand with Melenis, a bag full of newly liberated explosives at their feet and a bowl of steaming noodles each in hand.

“He’s a fucking asshole,” one merc said, nursing a drink.

“What do you mean, ‘he’?” Said the asari next to him. “Archangel is an entire crew. One man can’t be in two places at once, let alone three.”

“Nah, Archangel is a man. He’s a fucking ruthless, lone warrior type, I tell you. Some Council-space asshole with too much time on his hands and a fuckin’ chip on his shoulder.”

Well, they were right about the chip on his shoulder, at least.

“They _saw_ a whole group,” the asar said. “Arcangel is a fukcing gang. Some people are saying they’re all turian- trying to clean out the competition so they can move in on Blue Suns turf.”

Melenis smiled quietly into her steaming bowl of vegetable broth, and Shepard popped a dumpling into her mouth, chewing thoughtfully. Food had been off for her since her biotics were on the fritz, but she forced it down. She was losing weight.

The merc rubbed his stubble. “If it’s a gang how come we ain’t seen em? The Talons are a gang and they never let you forget it. I’m tellin’ ya, Archangel is just one guy. He clears out territory and don’t leave nothin’ but those little a symbols behind. He dosen’t _care_ about turf. That’s some vigilante shit right there.”

“The alpha symbol? That’s a fucking gang sign, dumbass.” Their voices were beginning to rise, and Lem slammed a butcher’s knife down hard, a fish head flying away from the chopping board. The two mercs shut up for a blessed moment.

Melains’ hands were folded neatly in her lap, but her eyes were beginning to dart, followed by a twitch as she tried to get a better look at the mercs and also keep an eye on the knife-wielding Lem. Shepard knew the signs of someone doing an excellent job of hiding that they were getting getting ready to bolt and jerked her head towards the door, mouthing a “let’s go.” The drell nodded and carefully and gathered her things-- namely the package which concealed her handgun and a dozen grenades.

The mercs returned to arguing. “It’s just one guy! Maybe he’s got help, but Archangel is just a man.”

“We just don’t know. Tarak even said _he_ don’t know. The Suns are getting desperate though. He’s offering a fucking _reward_ for intel.”

“Bad time to be joinin’ up with the Suns, no matter who’s behind this crap.”

“Whatever,” the asari said. “Everyone knows the Suns don’t like asari anyway. I’m getting off this rock for good next week. Gonna join the Sisters on Nos Astra…”

The human merc was suddenly distracted from the topic of Archangel, and launched into all the reasons his asari friend should stick around Omega. It wasn’t a really long list, and it essentially ended with a “stay for him.” Poor, smitten bastard.

Shepard fished out one of her many credit chits and waved it over the sensor on the table to pay for their meal. She stood up and stooped to retrieve the duffle bag, and immediately winced. _Sore._ Her thighs protested their most recent overuse, just the night before, and the shirt under her leather jacket scraped against the fresh scratches that criss-crossed her back. Shepard smiled to herself, taking perverse pleasure in the discomfort.

More of Archangel’s good work.

Gods, they’d been fucking like bunnies all month. Discrete bunnies, of course, and they hadn’t spent the night together again after that rough night she’d blasted him with her biotics. They were too busy, it was too intimate, he was too… but still.

Her bruises had bruises.

Melains tilted her head and Shepard realized her smile was more of a distracted grin, and she wiped it off her face she ushered the drell out the door.

A recording of a hard voiced batarian pursued them into the streets, blasted over the station PA system. “Arcangel is a menace to our way of life! Omega stands for freedom, and no matter who, or what this Archangel is, he must be stopped! Any information you have on this menace should be brought to the Blue Suns, alpha point. We are offering a reward of 500 credits for any information leading to Archangel.”

“So that explains it,” Shepard said, frowning. “That must be Tarak. Must've done something with that last raid to really piss ‘em off.”

“Archangel is on everyone’s lips,” the Drell said softly as the recording played out, and Shepard snorted. Archangel… and lips… and… wait _,_ did Melenis know about them? “Did I say something amusing, Shepard?” The drell was trailing along behind her a half pace, keeping close as she always did in public.

Shepard wiped the surprised look off her face with a grin, but she was a little quick with her reply. “No! That is…” She took a breath. “It seems odd to me. Why now? People might talk shit at bars, but Archangel hasn’t been in the news before. Something’s changed.” Shepard hadn’t seen Vakarian in over a day, not since the last time they’d crashed their bodies together, naked skin on plate, making her cry out and beg… good gods but he like to make her beg… but after, he’d taken Sensat and Sidonis and gone comm dark in the name of operational security, leaving her sore and stuck on an explosives supply run with Melenis.

Being left behind hadn’t bothered her at the time, but now she was starting to worry. Archangel in the news? They’d always been so careful. Shepard hefted the duffle bag and shifted her shoulder blades. Something was off.

“Let’s get back to Base,” she said, as her eyes caught a little white symbol in the corner of a shop window. The proprietor was a batarian, selling mods to a cluster of turians. Their eyes met, he nodded, and she kept walking.

When they got to base, it was swarming like a kicked hive of insects.

She and Melenis emerged from the A tunnel to see Monteague pounding up the stairs to the main floor. Shepard followed as soon as she and Melenis had properly stored the explosives, but had to push past a knot of squad members crowding the doorway.

“Weaver, hey… what’s happening?”

“Boss is back, and Sidonis is hurt,” ze reported, peering into the room.

“Sensat’s in there too,” said Merin, unable to see past Monteague’s bulk. “The boss won’t let anyone look at his injuries.”

Shepard tried to slip past them and stepped on Ripper’s foot before stumbling and emerging into the ground floor living room.

Butler had Sidonis lying on a gurney they kept for emergencies. The turian was out of his armor and bleeding gently on the tiled floor. Vakarian sat in a chair near by, bare to the waist, mandibles tight to his jaw as he used tweezers to pick bits of what might have been buckshot, or shrapnel out of his bicep. Sensat hovered nearby, her armor soot-streaked from explosives and splattered with red gore.

“What’s going on here?” Shepard’s voice snapped out. Shepard knew better than to interrupt a medic at work, but no one was even assisting Vakarian with his injuries. Stubborn idiot.

Sensat’s eyes snapped forward. “He won’t let me look at his arm,” Sensat was snarling, pacing. Vakarain was busy with the tweezers, trying to dig out a shard of metal from his bicep.

“What happened, Arch?” That was Monteague, peering around the door. That was it. The squad needed to go.

“Out!” Shepard shouted, not in her usual husky drawl, but in a voice that could carry across the battlefields of alien planets, shake the walls of mines and cause even the most stalwart of mercs to mutter a hasty _yes ma’am_. “All of you, out! Now.”

The squad obeyed, fading away with no more than a few muttered complaints Shepard didn’t bother to try and parse.

Sensat was slinking away, but Shepard shook her head. “You. Stay.”

Then she rounded on Vakarian.

“Hey,” he said, his face pinched as he tried to smile at her around the pain. “No idea you could get that loud, Shepard.”

She shot him a look. _Pretty sure you know how loud I can get._

Then she took a deep breath, suppressing the urge to shake him. Someone had done something stupid, and she had a sneaking suspicion it was _him._

She statched the medkit from his lap and pulled on a pair of surgical gloves, pulling the tweezers from his talons and giving him a cool look. He stared back, a curious chirp escaping as she looked over his arm. Shrapnel.

“Anyone want to tell me how the three of you ended up on the wrong side of a frag grenade?” Vakarian shrugged, and she tugged his arm. “Keep still.”

“We went after Tarak.”

“You _what?_ ” Shepard’s tweezers froze in mid air, dripping dark blue blood on to her knee.

“He got away.”

“Of course he got away. He’s Tarak. The only person more embeded on this station is Aria.”

Vakarian huffed, and then winced as she worked another slice of frag out of his hide. She was vaguely aware of Butler speaking to Sidonis, but was a bit more concerned with how the three of them had gotten up shits creek, and why they didn’t have paddles.

“And you didn’t think… to consult with me about this first? Isn’t that… why I’m here?”

Vakarian didn’t say anything, but Sensat growled. “And what would you have said? He’s untouchable? I’m starting to think you don’t want this station to change.”

 _Oh, here we go. Again._ Shepard wasn’t sure why Sensat had chosen her to hate so strongly when there were so many other despicable characters to pick on. Sidonis came to mind, even-- Shepard had decided that the man was sleazy, drawn to money and power and little else. But turians stuck together, apparently, and Shepard was now too close to the boss to avoid being a target.

“This station _can’t_ change if you get yourselves killed,” Shepard snapped. “I thought we’d worked out these suicidal tendencies months ago, Vakarian.”

He was quiet… “Yeah,” he said, blue eyes cool as he watched her hunch over his arm, working out piece after piece of shrapnel. “I thought we had, too.”

“So, you know they’re offering a reward for information on Archangel now? Melenis and I caught it over the radio on the way here. And this happened within the _hour,_ judging by your injuries. Gods damn it, we’d kept this so _quiet…_ and now…”

Shepard was expecting a summons from Aria at any moment. _Where are your loyalties Shepard?_ Sensat had her arms wrapped tight around her middle in what Shepard had come to recognize as a self comforting or perhaps defensive posture in turians. “What? What disaster do you foresee if we start making more waves? What is it that we can’t _possibly_ get our heads around?”

“Who here among us is from Omega?” She looked at each turian in turn, but none would meet her eyes.

Butler shifted. “I’ve been on Omega for over a decade.”

“Right,” she said. “And what’s Omega’s one rule?”

“Don’t fuck with Aria,” he said obediently.

“I’m thinking a little more general.” He gazed at her, not saying anything. “Let me spell it out. Don’t fuck with the people in power. At least not directly.” She dug a particularly embedded bit of shrapnel out of Vakarian’s chest plate, and he growled.

“Yes, but--” Sensat would argue until the Genophage was cured if Shepard let her.

“Whatever. It’s done. Just know this. Things are going to be a hell of a lot harder now that the head of the Blue Suns views Archangel as a personal threat.”

“Good!” Sensat was pacing now. “We fucked up, he got away, but now he’s scared. He’s going to start making mistakes, slipping up. We’ll catch him!”

“And then what?” Shepard felt a bubble of fury rise in her chest and she paused in her digging around Vakarian’s wounds so she wouldn’t accidentally-on-purpose stab him. “You kill Tarak. You kill Garm. Hell, you fuckin’ kill Aria. Then you’re left with a station that has no resources, no leadership, and no fucking way of keeping itself running. You want to wipe out the big time players, you better be prepared for total station shutdown.” “I don’t see what’s wrong with that,” Sensat snapped back.

“We can _change_ this place, Shepard.” Vakarian’s voice was soft, almost pleading with her, like he didn’t believe what he was saying and wanted her to tell him it was going to be okay. It wasn’t going to be okay.

How could she get them to understand? “People _live_ here. And so... you _do_ take out the major players, and you want to keep things running? Make things better? What then? Set up an interim government? Get people _voting?”_ A bitter laugh escaped her before she could stop it. “I can see it now-- vigilantes turned bureaucrats. Good luck with that.”

“Archangel could do it,” Sensat muttered.

Vakarian stiffened under her hands, and she went back to digging under his skin for chunks of metal. Sensat wasn’t wrong. Vakarian was brilliant-- he was a leader, he inspired people to be better. Hell, he inspired her to be better. He could form a coup, stage a takeover of Omega and try to run things his way, the _right way._ But did he _want to?_

Shepard let the tweezers drop, and grabbed a packet of medigel. “I can do that, Shepard,” Vakarian said.

“Don’t,” she said, annoyed. She remembered his hands smoothing cream on the scratches he’d left on her back, his hands mopping the blood away from her nose, talons tracing the puffy scar from her stab wound. “Let me.” Her voice was more gentle than she liked, starkly different from the righteous fury she’d just been spewing over the three turians moments before, but she wasn’t sorry for it. He made one of those sweet little half chirps-- a sound that reminded her of a human making an nervous hum and his hands dropped to allow her access to his chest and his arm again. She smoothed the gel over each puncture and cut across his plates and hide, fingers gentle even if her brows were drawn down into a sullen frown.

Sidonis made a scathing sound at the back of his throat, quickly followed by a growl of pain and a muttered “sorry” from Butler.

After a moment, Shepard looked up to see Sensat staring at her as if she’d never seen her before. Shepard stared back, unblinking until Sensat abruptly turned and walked off. She returned to the work of smoothing medigel over Vakarian’s plates, but his hands closed around hers and she looked up. Their eyes caught and she was struck by just how bright and blue his irises were, even behind that damned visor. He looked sad… and angry. There was an unspoken question in his gaze-- _are we okay?_ The corner of her mouth twitched, but she shook her head just slightly in exasperation, laughed a little as the fight went out of her. His mandibles twitched, and something in his gaze shifted from sad to… relieved. _Oh, Vakarian, you enormous, beautiful idiot. You’re gonna get yourself dead._ He took the medigel from her hands, placing the packet on the tray with the bits of shrapnel and the bloodied tweezers. The gloves followed, his talons careful as ever as he peeled them off of her hands and dropped them on the tray with the rest of the used medical supplies. Butler stood up at last, and Shepard heard his back crack audibly as the older man stretched, pointedly not looking at the two of them sitting practically nose to nose on the couch, fucking holding hands _. Jesus H. Christ, get a grip. Preferably not on Vakarian._ Shepard shifted away, fixing the nurse with a stare that simply begged him to say something, and Vakarian dropped her hand and turned to the other turian.

“I need a word with Sidonis,” Vakarian said, his words clipped. They were dismissed. Shepard popped up from her seat and followed Butler to the stairs, but paused in the threshold. She’d never been particularly good at being subordinate.

“It might be time to think about moving shop, Vakarian.” He fixed her with a stare, and she raised her hands in supplication. “Just… think about it.”

As she headed downstairs, Shepard’s mind gears into overdrive, humming with anxiety. The laundry list of things that were going to go wrong was getting longer and longer each time Vakarian made a move on Omega. She met Melenis down in storage, and the two of the worked silently for a while, adding their haul of explosives to the inventory, and Shepard made a list of everything currently wrong with her life.

Archangel was a growing pressure cooker that was going to explode. Someone was going to get killed soon Vakarian wasn’t very, very careful about how he handled Tarka. But Archangel was not hers to control. She could only advise, and help, and watch with bated breath and pray it wouldn’t crash and burn, taking them all with it.

More pressing were her biotics. Mordin didn’t know what was wrong. He was working on it, doing tests, testing theories, but he needed time. Shepard didn’t have time. She needed her biotics now. She was useless without them, sometimes worse than helpless-- she felt like an outright risk on missions without them.

And then there was Aria. Aria was a clear and present danger. If word was breathed that Nym Shepard was Aria’s girl, and Aria’s girl was working with Archangel-- _Sleeping with Archangel_ , there would be a very real chance the whole squad would turn on her. Krul knew, of course, but Krul didn’t give a shit, and didn’t talk to anyone, and besides, he loved her in his own way. But there were other ways they could find out, and Aria would certainly be growing more interested in Archangel after the little stunt he’d pulled earlier.

Then there was the whole mess of her stolen shotgun, and what Cerberus had to do with the vanished miners. A mystery that offered no leads, and no real incentive to solve besides getting her gun back. But there were other missing people in the galaxy, and that led her to the Collectors and the fact that there were bigger monsters moving at the fringes of the galaxy. She didn’t have a clear picture yet, but the intel, the whispers, the paranoia were all beginning to resolve into something like a nightmare that she wasn’t going to be able to wake up from, trapped and helpless.

And then there was the mess that was her personal life, and the big, stupid turian that was currently debriefing with his second in command upstairs--

Melenis asked Shepard something that nearly made her drop the box of grenades she was putting back on the shelf. “Sorry, didn’t catch that?”

Melenis cleared her throat. “Do you and Archangel have a romantic relationship, as well as a sexual one?”

Shepard shoved the box up on the shelf and snorted a laugh. What a question!

“I don’t want to talk about Vakarian right now. He’s on my shit list.”

“Your ‘shit list’? That sounds… horrible,” Melenis said quietly, looking politely horrified. Shepard sighed.

“Wow. Yeah. I guess that does sound pretty bad. It’s a dumb human expression. Just… I’m sorry. There are a lot of things in my life that are difficult right now, but it is neither useful or interesting to talk about them.”

“Oh. Very well.”

Shepard coughed. “How are you settling in here? It can’t be an easy adjustment for yo.”

Melenis tilted her head. “I like Base. It is safe, and the people here are fine. Some are even kind, like Butler. The rest leave me alone, which I like. I respect Archangel’s mission. Weaver is amusing. Sensat is fascinating. You are inspiring. I could tell you how I find each squad member if that would interest you, or if you would find it useful?”

Shepard ducked her head. “I think that’s sufficient insight, but… thank you. Really, you’re the inspiring one, Melenis. You know, you’re free, right? You can leave here at any time, and no one will stop you?” Melenis smiled. “I understand the concept. The… application of freedom is more difficult.”

Shepard knew this intimately. She’d spent ten years in the Traverse and the Terminus, talking to people who had experienced slavery, helping them take that first step back into life. She never stuck around long enough to observe or help with the process, but she knew those first shaky steps towards freedom were vital, and Melenis was taking them with great courage.

“Well, if you ever need anything,” Shepard said, “Anything at all-- someone to take you to lunch like we did today, or... a ride of this station, or anything at all, you can ask me. I’ll be there.”

The drell paused and then offered her hands. Shepard took them gently, unsure. What she said next made Shepard hold her breath. “I was trained by hanar, from the Compact. I failed my training and was donated. I never thought I was a slave until I was forced to kill for men who hated. The hanar do not hate, and I would have gladly killed for them. But not for men who hate. I am happy here, taking small steps away from that hate. I see you taking small steps away as well, and I find you inspiring. Thank you, Shepard.” Melenis’ thumbs brushed Shepard’s palms, and they stood there a moment, hands joined, before Shepard’s comm buzzed, breaking the silence. Shepard exhaled.

A glance at the signal made her heart sink. That channel meant only one thing. Aria was calling.

“The Compact? Oh, I’m so sorry, Melenis, I-- have to take this. Can we talk later?”

“I understand, Shepard. We can speak later, when there is time. I had a pleasant day with you, and I hope the damage done by the turians’ raid is not wholly jeopardizing to Archangel’s mission.”

Shepard shook her head as she sent back an encrypted message: one of two that she sent when Aria called. _On my way._

The other was _fuck off,_ but really meant “I’m busy, but be there when I can.”

“Only time will tell Melenis. Stay sharp.”

 

~~~

 

**Garrus**

“Would you care to justify yourself, Lantar?”

Garrus’ second in command was propped on a chair, his midsection bandaged, eyes doped and heavy.

“I stand by my statement. It wouldn’t have been easy, or enjoyable, but it would have insured our anonymity. They were the only ones who could have gotten the information about Archangel to Tarka so quickly.”

“They were unarmed. One of them was _chained to the fucking wall._ ”

“We’re doing dangerous work. Sometimes we need to make hard choices.” “We miscalculated, but the innocent _never_ have to pay for the mistakes we make, understood?” The anger Garrus felt tight in his gut was sour, blinding him. He wanted to kick Sidionis out, make him disappear.

“I’m sorry… Garrus.”

His head snapped up at the sound of his name, and he began to growl, low and eerie. The sound of a challenge. “Don’t… ever say that name again. You _forget_ that name. That man is dead.” _That man wants to live again,_ another part of him said.

“I’m sorry… Archangel.”

“Better,” Garrus growled. _Worse._

“I was hurt. Wasn’t thinking clearly. I’m just getting paranoid, you know? This game we’re playing isn’t getting any easier. Somebody’s going to get hurt.” Sidonis fell silent, eyes studying the tile floor.

Garrus let the silence linger on, the anger fading to a dull ache in his belly. “Never again, do you understand?” Sidonis nodded.

“She’s right, you know.” “How’s that?” “Shepard. It’s like cracking a plate saying it, but Shepard’s right. It might be time to think about moving on. We’ve done well, Vakarian. Split it evenly and the money we’ve been pulling from these ops isn’t something to turn our backs on.”

“I’m not interested in the money,” Garrus growled.

“I’m not interested in dying on this rock,” Sidonis growled back.

 _That makes one of us,_ Garrus wanted to say. Instead he stood up with a suppressed wince. “The mission continues. We just move more carefully. Start looking for traps. I need you now more than ever, Sidonis. Get some rest and report back to me when you’re fit for duty.”

Sidonis watched him go, not saying a damn thing.

Vakarian took the stairs two of a time, and saw a flash of curly red hair whip around a corner as he entered Base’s sublevel. Shepard, off to do her Shepard things, charging around even when she didn’t ahve her biotics. He imagined she was off to do some damage control for him, hit the streets and start gathering information, talk to the right people, see how big of a mistake he’d really made. He loved… he loved that he didn’t even have to ask her. She knew more than he did what the right thing to do was.

Sprits, Shepard. Her hands causing pain as they dug out the shrapnel, then soothing his wounds with medigel, her eyes blazing as she argued with Sensat. The two of them needed to have a good sparring match and get it over with-- there was no other way they could break that tension between them besides…. Sex. Best not to think about that alternative right now.

Now the basement was mercifully empty. Garrus found the armor bench and took off his visor. He needed a reminder of why he couldn’t make mistakes. His squad was counting on him, and he couldn’t let them down, not a single one of them.

He felt naked and half blind without the visor on, without the tint of blue and rush of information it provided, but he needed to do this. He cleaned the metal carefully before powering up the engraving tool and studying his eyepiece.

The custom metal frame was large enough for twelve names, if he could keep his writing small. He wrote the first name, the metal groaning under the fine tool.

 _Butler._ A voice sounded behind him. “Is something wrong with your visor?”

It was Melenis. Garrus suppressed a jump. “No, just making a few alterations.”

The woman was so damn _quiet,_ he hadn’t heard her come in, thought he’d been alone.

Melenis studied him for a long moment, and then came over to peer at his work. “That is an engraving tool,” she said quietly.

Garrus stared at the visor and the sharp tool in his hand. “It is.”

“Are you writing something?”

“Names,” he said, softly. “Your names. All of them.”

“You will have to write very small if you want them to fit.” He thought there was the faintest sound of a smile in her voice, but that couldn’t be right. Melenis smiled, but it was never because of a joke or a funny observation… though she had been spending a lot of time with Shepard.

“I’ll show you,” he said, and bent over his visor, writing another name.

 _Melenis_.

“Oh,” she said peering at her name before beaming up at him. “That’s my name.”

He wrote another name. _Grundan Krul._

She smiled faintly and sat on a crate by the bench, watching him work, but didn’t ask any questions. For that, he was grateful.

_Sensat. Weaver._

He moved to the lower arm of his visor, the letters cramped.

_Sidonis._

The metal buzzed and grew hot under his talons.

_Ripper. Vortash. Mierin._

The sound of the engraver was a drone in his ears, faintly buzzing, reminding him of the noise the tattoo gun had made when it marked him a Vakarian, fifteen years ago, when he’d become an adult and been allowed to wear the blue across his face.

_Erash. Monteague._

Some names were more powerful than others. He felt that he barely knew some of these people, but they were his squad, and he owed them everything.

There was one name left. One more spot with just enough room above his eye.

_Shepard._

Melenis studied him intently for a moment, and Garrus let her draw her own conclusions. It was nice to see the drell smile. She blinked those huge black eyes at him once, and then left him alone in the gloom of the sub-basement to polish his visor and put it back across his eye where it belonged.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, things are starting to happen. The next two chapters are a buckle up and hold on sort of thing in terms of plot and relationships, and I can't wait to finish writing them. I have finals coming up and a lot of grading to do, but I hope to publish every 5 days or so but it may take longer, depending on if I can get my act together.
> 
> Any chapter with plot is hard for me to write and I would LOVE to get some critique on this chapter in particular. Does splitting the POV like this work? How is the pacing? Once again thank you for reading and commenting. I love writing this fic and I cherish all your comments. <3


	15. Asteroid Hearts

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for your feedback and comments on last chapter regarding pacing and POV! I am sitting at over 113k words as of right now and it's still... not... done. I'm so happy people are reading and enjoying this fic and I can't wait to share what I have planned. So again, thank you. <333

  
__I'll be so quiet for you_ _  
__Look like a child for you_ _  
__Be like a shadow of a shadow,_ _  
__Of a shadow for you_ _

“Take me Home” - Perfume Genius

**Shepard**

Shepard built a liar’s house, rehearsing the walk to Afterlife, taking care to conceal the level of her involvement with Archangel. A liar’s house was a self contained reality Shepard inhabited when she needed, badly, to believe her own lies. There were layers, all carefully laid out to keep Vakarian out of trouble as much as she was able, and the best way to lie was to believe your own bullshit. Sure, she’d admit to helping out now and then with eradicating slavers, because that was what Shepard __did.__ She wasn’t __involved.__ She wasn’t __invested.__ She knew a lost cause when she saw one. She didn’t actually care.

Afterlife swallowed her up, and the club music took over her thoughts, insidious and making it hard to stay in her liar’s house. Instead she remembered-- approaching Vakarian that first time she’d seen him there when he sat alone, trying to buy information off of a server, remembered how he’d studied her and how he’d been so eager to get started on his sisyphean task-- his death wish she was helping him carry out. Meeting Sensat and Weaver, and drinking and grabbing his waist that night… how upset he’d been when she’d gone AWOL... None of it belonged in her liar’s house. In her liar’s house she didn’t care.

She had to keep him out.

The black-clad guard who kept people from climbing the stairs to Aria’s dias stood aside with a grunt and a nod of recognition, and Shepard took the steps two at a time, not bothering to count them as was her custom. She counted things to stay calm, to keep track, to stay in control, but right now it seemed a useless crutch. There was no need to count because what lay beyond was out of her control. She already knew how many steps there were to Aria.

The old coping mechanisms were failing her, falling away and leaving her world slightly off-kilter.

Aria sat in her customary seat in the middle of her sleek couch, but Shepard was surprised to see a scatter of data pads on either side of her. Aria was burned into her memory as effortless, poised and watching Omega spin from her high castle, her smile faint and cruel. Aria never put in the appearance of work, even when she was pulling strings and crunching numbers, but data pads meant __work__.

Shepard took her place on the other side of the couch, leaning back with one arm thrown over the back, leg crossed at the knee, foot bobbing to the music and to her nerves, but as Aria’s gaze settled on her, she stilled.

“You look unwell,” Aria said with a frown bordering on disgust.

Shepard sniffed the air with a thoughtful twist of her mouth, inhaling the damp bouquet that was Afterlife. It smelled like smoke and booze, bodies and perfume.

“It’s all this fresh air,” she said, gesturing to nothing in particular. “Going to my head.”

“It was the red sand, the way I hear it,” Aria said.

Shepard shrugged. “Well, it was airborne, so...”

Aria snorted at her attempt of a joke. “I trust you are taking the proper steps towards getting yourself back into acceptable condition? I know you make a hobby out of burning out bio-amps, but the time for childish games is running short. War is coming.”

The pit of Shepard’s stomach dropped a little lower. “I think calling it ‘war’ is being a little dramatic--”

“There are things--”

“It’s not like Archangel is--”

Aria had been leaning with her chin on her hands, elbows resting on her knees, but her head snapped up as she cut Shepard off with a sharp question: “Archangel?” The smile that twitched across her lips was cruel, and made Shepard’s heart sink. Miscalculation. Major. “Oh, Nym,” Aria said. “You always did wear your heart on your sleeve.”

__Shit.__

Shepard glanced down at her arm as if looking for a heart and finding only the brown leather of her jacket. No armor today. No need for armor if she couldn’t fight. Without her gun, with broken biotics, Shepard was rendered toothless, and Aria could smell it all over her.

“Archangel is not why I called you here today, but since you brought up your… juicy young turian… Archangel has been more of a boon to me than you know. He goes in, wrecks the competition, and then vanishes, leaving me free to claim territory with no effort, and no loss. Archangel’s work has allowed me to repossess areas of the station I haven’t set foot in for two centuries.”

Aria paused and Shepherd let the information sink in. She should have known… Aria had been so absent from Nym’s day-to-day, so of course there was a reason. Aria always had her reasons, and Shepard would have been foolish to think that Aria was simply uninterested in Archangel. Archangel was changing Omega, and Aria __was__ Omega, so she was invested. It just happened that Archangel was changing things in her favor.

But that was not the reason Shepard had been summoned.

“Well, I’m very happy for you,” Shepard said. “I know how you hate to be seen putting in effort.”

“We have bigger matters to attend to than you and I, or you and the turian. I have intel.”

The itch was back between Shepard’s shoulder blades as Aria snapped her fingers. One of her bodyguards, Bray, Shepard thought his name was, strode forward and handed Aria another data pad.

Aria’s eyes skimmed over the flashing letters and numbers before she handed it over to Shepard. Shepard read the front page of the data set and tried to open it, got an error.

“What is this?”

“Data.”

“Obviously. It’s encrypted. I can’t do anything with it. What’s it on? What’s it for?”

“Do you remember… oh, a few months ago now, when a young couple came through Afterlife-- a drell and an asari? Not the usual Omega type, a bit more polished. Sexy, with an air of… how should I say it… galactic importance? The drell worked for the Shadow Broker. The asari… she’s seen thing you wouldn’t believe. You sent them to me, for which I thank you.”

The night was burned into her memory-- the night she’d dropped her tail on the Collectors in favor of finding out what the hell she’d been babbling at Vakarian when she’d OD’d.

“I remember,” she said, her voice tight. “They were looking for something-- someone.”

“Indeed. They found who they were looking for, but he got away-- incidental to the data. What is important is that they ended up fighting Collectors on their journey, and they stole this, and sent it to me.”

For the second time that night, Shepard felt herself wavering over a chasm. __Collectors?__ Whs that what this was all about? How had Aria surprised her with this?

 _ _Easy. Don’t show Aria you’re surprised.__ “I thought Collectors would be a human concern?”

“The Collectors poke their noses out of the Omega 4 relay every twenty years or so, and I swat them back, but they have never, ever been this active. They are everyone’s concern, or they will be, soon.”

“The Council--”

“Won’t listen. The Alliance won’t care. This is a direct threat to the Terminus Systems, and if it grows, it will threaten the Traverse. The mercs out here have their heads so far up their eezo loving asses that the Terminus Systems will be decimated by the time the Council turns its wallowing sights towards the Collector threat.”

“You said the drell was an operative? What about the asari? Why didn’t they send this to the Shadow Broker?”

Aria’s smile was cold as the void.

“The Shadow Broker is working with the Collectors.”

__Oh, shit._ _

“Why give this to me? Can’t you get one of your tech babblers to do it?”

“I know you’ve been looking for information on the Collectors, trying to connect the dots. I sense this is the break you need. I’m giving it to you so I don’t have to be involved. I have shit to do, and you’ve __obviously__ got too much time on your hands with the games your’e playing with the turian. It will be put to better use finding out finding out what the Collectors are doing, and putting a stop to this war before it ruins my fucking life.”

Ah, and there it was. The worst part was that Aria wasn’t wrong. She __had__ been tracking Collector sightings and mongering rumors for months, but she hadn’t had a lead in months, and was slipping into Archangel’s world more and more deeply as her research lead to dead end after dead end. She thought that perhaps the Collectors were a dead end in themselves.

The data changed things. Her mind was already shifting gears, away from Aria’s baiting, away from any sort of personal feelings about the origin of the data. She had a __job__. First thing first, she needed to decrypt the data, and her tech skills were limited to hacking a circuit board or setting a demo charge. She needed someone who understood big data and network security-- or whatever. There was probably really impressive jargon for breaking the top secret security designed by ancient human-abducting aliens that might not actually exist, but Shepard would be damned if she knew the words. She needed to see Krul.

That it was Aria’s idea burned a little. It made her feel as if she had not chosen this fight. But she __had__ chosen it, when Nihlus had died - she’d chosen it __years ago__ when she chose to devote her life to fighting slavers. The Collectors were galactic boogeyman, ancient monsters, but under that air of eldritch horror was one fundamental truth. Collectors were slavers. They just wore a different skin then blue and white merc armor. Shepard slipped the data pad into her inner jacket pocket, and stood.

“So if that’s all…?”

“That is all.”

__Just crack the data, find the ancient boogeyman, wipe ‘em out, and save the life of every human in the Terminus Systems. No big deal. No problem._ _

Her liar’s palace crumbled around her as she left Afterlife. She should tell Vakarian. She should __not__ tell Vakarian. Not until she had hard data. It wasn’t that she worried he’d think she was crazy, it was that… she needed him to know she wasn’t going to leave just to follow some whim or hunch. She had a reason for doing whatever it was she was going to do.

Shepard walked back to Base, the datapad weighing her down like a stone. She savored being alone for the quite half hour walk through Gozu and Kima districts after an exhausting day that wasn’t over yet. The explosives run, the disaster with the Blue Suns, her argument with the squad and patching up Vakarian, followed up by the pounding migraine that was Afterlife and now she had a pocket full of the most dangerous data in the galaxy.

And the Shadow Broker was working for the __Collectors?__

She was still sorting through the new information and its implications when she passed through the twisting access tunnel that was her prefered route to Base that week, and hit the switch to close the shutter behind her. She’d have to talk to Vortash about fixing that ten second delay before the shutter slammed shut-- that sort of delayed response would be a security issue if anyone ever tried to break in via the tunnels. Ten seconds could make the difference between life and death.

Krul’s room was upstairs, and Shepard groaned to herself as she realized that everyone was present, doing whatever it was that Archangel's people did during down time. There was no way she was going to get through to Krul without being stopped by at least one person. __Just look busy.__ Weaver, Monteague, Vortash, Erash, Butler and Vakarian were seated around the big table in the living room, playing cards. Vakarian’s head snapped up when he saw her. He looked tired, eyes hooded and face pinched with what must be pain from the shrapnel wounds across his arm and chest, or perhaps wounded pride at his most recent mission’s failure, or both. Whatever the reason for his pinched looks, he must be tired. His mandibles flared as if to say something but Shepard shook her head and pointed up the stairs. He raised a brow and she gave him the hand signal for “ten minutes” and he nodded.

“Hey, Shepard!” That was Monteague. “Shepard,” she said again when she didn’t stop, heading for the stairs, the data pad weighing her down with every step. “You’re not gonna play a hand?”

“Maybe later,” she called back, one foot on the landing.

“C’mon. Weaver is cleaning us out and __still__ pretending ze can’t play for shit.”

Weaver grinned innocently at the multicolored pile of chips in front of hir as Shepard’s mouth twitched as waved them off.

Weaver chose that moment to lay another round of bets, and the attention was back on the game. Shepard took the stairs two at a time and moments later was knocking on the door to Krul’s room… to no answer.

She knocked again.

“Go away. I’m done with Archangel business for tonight.”

“It’s me,” she said.

“I know,” Krul said and Shepard peered around the door frame and saw a little red light angled towards where she stood. She smiled winningly into the camera. One thing she liked about Krul was that he was more paranoid than she was. It was refreshing.

“Come on, Krul. I’ve got a special project for you.”

There was a long moment of silence, but Shepard just waited, staring patiently into the camera until she heard the lock on the door click, and the sensor went from yellow to green. With a hiss the doors slid open and she slipped inside the server room Krul had built for himself.

It was dark and hot, and full of blinking lights and the sound of spinning fans. Screens flickered with different things-- surveillance footage, code, porn, reports, tracking data, maps… and as Shepard took it all in, Krul moved from out behind a rack of terminals to stand in the middle of it all.

“You never visit,” he said, “unless you want something.”

He was in shadow, half his face inscrutable so she felt pinned by just the left set of eyes she could see instead of the four. He was upset with her… why was he upset with her?

“Grundan,” she started, and then she looked around. “Did you build… all of this?” The room was large, but it felt cramped, claustrophobic, and there was an intricacy that she had missed on first glance. This room was a labor of love. Thick network cables pooled on the floor and snaked up walls, connecting haphazard screens and massive terminals, and yet had a certain, intuitive flow Shepard would not be able to fully describe if she’d been pressed to at gunpoint.

“It is quiet here-- at least when __you’re__ not around. Safer than Gozu.”

Shepard nodded. She’d seen where he lived in Gozu’s lower slums once before, a filthy one room apartment that was like this room… but even more mad with screens and devices, cramped and aged, bits and pieces of computers being replaced by new components until it was more a living sculpture of paranoia and obsession than it was a lab.

“You’re not developing an AI or something in here, are you?”

“Hardly. Maps.”

Her eyes fell on a lightboard, with notes in batarian that her translator couldn’t parce because they were too far into jargon. The script was angular, dashing across the glass surface of the board as madly as some of the technology in the room seemed to vanish into shadow, trying to escape itself. For a moment Shepard couldn’t breath.

“Lock the door. Do you have any audio dampers?”

Krul looked at her flatly, but from the corner of her eye she saw the door sensor turn red. “What do you think this is, science-fiction?” He hit a few strokes on his omnitool and music burst from hidden speakers, loud and slightly decedent to Shepard’s ears. Club music-- but obscure. Krul wouldn’t be caught dead playing Expel 10 or any of the shit they played at Afterlife. “Talk quiet and no one’ll hear shit. I promise you the only bugs in this base are mine.”

As if to prove a point he hit another button, and an audio feed played under the music.

Weaver was rambling about something… hir voice hard to make out over the pounding bass. __“We’ve got turians, humans, a drell, a batarian, a salarian….a krogan.”__

 _ _“The__ best _ _krogan,”__ Erash rumbled.

 _ _“You’re pretty great, Erash, but you still only count as one krogan,”__ Weaver’s crackling voice shot back. __“Anyway, my point is-- do you think it’s strange that there are exactly zero asari working for Archangel? Oh… and I… uh… I guess I’ll put another chip in. Right?”__

Krul muted the feed and Shepard asked, “Does Vakarian know about the bugs?”

Krul didn’t say anything, just looked at her.

She was getting off target. Krul was showing off, trying to impress her, or intimidate her, or do whatever it was that Krul did, but she wouldn’t let him win.

“How’s Cerberus treating you?” Krul’s head jerked around, and she could see all four eyes as he came closer. “They talk about nothing. Endless prattle about humans and their ascendance. I am still working on finding the ones who did the experiments, though I am starting to get impatient. I may just take out any Cerberus agent I come across.” His chin jutted to the holo maps dancing along the back wall of the room, metadata streaming across the star systems as they rotated around a central pin that was Omega.

Okay, maybe Shepard was impressed. It put her own pathetic attempts at researching the Collectors to shame, seeing all of this.

Another map caught her eye, and she drew a breath. “Is that… Omega?”

“What I know of it.” The holomap glowed orange on another lightboard. Some areas were dark, but there was a definitive, hellish mushroom shape of the station. Krul went to a terminal and the map zoomed in sickeningly fast. “This is us.” The familiar shape of the base stood out amongst the less defined shapes of the rest of Kima district. “I’m working on nailing down every merc nest in our reach. Sub 82 districts are out of our reach, as are the Felward Arms.”

“Aria can’t even get into Felward.”

“She did something to you today, didn’t she. You never look this bad unless Aria’s been fucking with you.”

Shepard made a face. Krul… for all his flaws, for how fucking __impossible__ he was to deal with most of the time, he __knew__ about Aria and he never said a word. Not to anyone. Most likely it was because he just didn’t care, but Shepard was grateful for his lack of interest in the drama of mere mortals.

“Yeah… something.” She pulled the data pad out of her pocket and passed it to Krul, who took one look at it and swore. Then he was silent as he kept staring. Then he swore again.

“Do you know what this is?”

“Vaguely. I was hoping you could help me find out specifically. This has nothing to do with Archangel. Vakarian knows nothing about this. It’s… something I’ve been working on for months, and this is the first real evidence I’ve found. I just need to know what’s in the data.”

Krul looked up from the pad. “I’ve never seen encryption like this before. It is… interoperable with current technology, but it feels… old. Ancient.”

“Spare me the mumbo jumbo. Please,” she added when Krul’s hands tightened around the pad. “Whatever is in that pad is going to fuck up my life enough already. I don’t need to feel stupid while it does so. I just want to be able to interpret the data.”

Krul studied her a moment, and she found her eyes locking with his, darting between the two sets. Then he made a face and turned away. “It’s going to take a few days. And it’s going to cost you.”

“Bill the Queen. And for the love of all that’s unholy, don’t use the account you have linked to Archangel.”

“I’m not the stupid one here, Shepard.”

“Yeah,” she breathed. “I know.”

Krul went to a terminal and a screen sprang to life as he plugged in the datapad. __How many screens did he have in here?__ She counted at least seven… plus this one and the lightboards. Krul began to run algorithms, the code streaming down the screen. She stood and watched the programs speed through unintelligible text for a few moments, feeling like she was watching a life sentence being handed down to her by a galactic court. But what would it be?

She was liminal, not knowing what the data held and realized she didn’t want to know. Knowing would mean action, and action would mean…

No, she wouldn’t think about that just yet. Not until she __knew.__

“Uh, Krul? You’re gonna have to unlock the door, or what?” He grunted, not looking over his shoulder, and an instant later the door turned green.

 

~~~

 

**Garrus**

Garrus looked at his cards and groaned. His heart wasn’t in the game anyway, and this would be his fourth successive shit hand of Skyllian Five. Weaver tossed three white chits into the center of the table to open the round of betting, and Butler groaned as well.

“I fold.” Butler dropped his cards to put his head in his hands.

“Me too,” Garrus said. He was not usually one to quit, no matter the odds, but tonight? Tonight neither his head, nor his heart were in the game.

“Already?” Weaver was staring at them in horror. Garrus gazed at the three remaining chits in front of him and then gave Weaver a look.

Butler was a bit more upset. “You…. shifty cow! You’re a scammer!” he said, shaking his head at Weaver. “You said you’d never played before!”

“No,” Weaver said sweetly as Vortash, Monteague, and Erash placed their bets. “I said I haven’t played __much.__ Which is also a lie.” Ze paused, looking incredibly smug. “I used to play professionally.”

Garrus stood as the round continued, with a bit of yelling about Weaver being a scammer and a shark, whatever that was, but he could feel Butler’s eyes on him as he made his excuses.

“Take it easy on those injuries, Vakarian!” Butler’s voice followed him up the stairs. “One thousand cuts and all...”

“I have no idea what that means, Butler.”

He heard Weaver snickered into hir cards but Butler didn’t bother to explain.

“Good __night,__ ” he said, his subvocals betraying a whine of annoyance, and Vortash of all people laughed deep in his subvocals. Spirits, he was just going to go lie down-- and if Shepard happened to be upstairs _ _,__ doing __whatever__ , and she had also happened to give him a hand signal that said __ten minutes,__ just about ten minutes ago, well that was just a lucky bonus, wasn’t it? It had been a long and exasperating day, and he was injured, frustrated, and __tired.__ He wanted to be alone.

Preferably with Shepard.

She was leaving Krul’s off limits server den as he made it up the stairs, and they both stopped short of each other. She looked tired, smelled feral and brittle, and Garrus had a sudden urge to toss her over his shoulder and carry her somewhere far away from the utter nightmare that was Omega and Archangel, keep her safe, make her happy...

She smiled at him then, and his mandibles flared in response, head tilted in an unspoken question. __Somewhere private?__ She thrust her chin in the direction of the spare bedroom and led the way. “Come on, big guy,” she said over her shoulder. She wasn’t wearing armor, but civs, and it looked… odd. He watched her hips sway, slim curves in dark, tight pants, commando boots on her feet and leather across her wiry shoulders.

The door hissed shut behind him and they stood staring at each other. “What’s going on, Shepard?” he said, taking a step forward, head lowered to try and catch her eye.

She shook her head. “Nothing.”

Something like a set of talons found his vocal cords and began to squeeze. He took a moment, let the feeling pass before he let himself speak again. “You may __think__ you’re an excellent liar, but I can smell the worry all over you. What are you up to?”

“Turians… the galaxy's sentient lie detectors.” She was in sarcasm mode, but he just continued to stare until she relented. “Look, I don’t know yet. I... need a few days. I’ll have a clearer picture by then.”

So something __was__ up. He had felt it in his gut, and had a sneaking, desperate suspicion that she was going to be leaving again.

“What about your biotics?”

“Most people survive just fine without biotics,” she said with a slight smile. “I’ll survive, just like them. And... I really...”

“You really don’t want to talk about it. I get it.” She smiled, but said nothing and he felt a faint stab of frustration. This woman had no discipline, no safety net. She flew blind into danger and called it her life, and he... Spirits, he would watch her do it, over and over, and he... loved her for the blind bravery it. And hated her for the reckless stupidity of it, for twisting him up and making him question what was so black and white in his mind.

With Fisher, he’d flown in the white. He was good, and did good. Then Fisher died, Garrus erased himself from Citadel Space, ran away to Omega and here on this Spirits-forsaken rock he hid in the black. He’d thought Omega would bring him obscurity and isolation, but instead he’d found Shepard.

She was not black, or white, but gray, and he didn’t know what to do with gray.

“Shepard… what are we… what is this thing we’re doing?” She was wound tight, and he felt her ready to bolt, but he was sick of not being able to read her, her keeping everything at a distance with smiles and kisses and sex but nothing more, no words or actions that reveald her intentions. Did she __have__ intentions, or was she really just this wild thing, lashing out until she struck something?

Spirits, he wanted her. Not… sex, exactly, though there was an element of that. There was always an element of __that__. He needed to touch her, feel the vibration of the single larynx of her voice under his hands, feel her breathe in and out, alive and vital, as she told him what the hell was going on.

She remained separate, offering some definitions on what she thought this “thing” was that they were doing: “Blowing off steam,” she said. “Sparring. Fucking, if you like.”

“Is that it? Just a friendly fuck, every chance we get? For weeks? Sprits, Shepard, you’re in my head...” __Constantly.__

She looked so small, standing there with her shoulders drawn in and her arms crossed. Garrus uncrossed his own arms from where he’d been hugging his waist, and took a step closer as she said, “I could say the same of you.” She said it so quietly he had to pause, make sure she’d really said it. Then she smiled, but it was a sad smile. “I don’t know how much... more I have in me here, Vakarian.”

Here. Omega.

 _ _They__ weren’t the problem. Shepard and Vakarian, they had damage, sure, but it wasn’t anything unusual or unmanageable. They were high-risk, high reward players and the only reason they couldn’t be more than fuck buddies was because they were on Omega. He saw it now, the mistake he’d made in coming here, the damage he was doing to himself and the damage this place was doing to her, though he didn’t know __why,__ but he wanted it finished.

He just needed a little more time.

The hand was back in his throat and he made a little sound as he deflated, sinking to the edge of the bed, head in his hands.

“I’m so tired, Shepard,” he said, not looking at her, but the floor.

A hand, small, with five fingers, entered his field of vision. Small, translucent nails over brown skin, too many digits, short by his standards but long for a human’s, found his talons and pulled his hands away from where he clutched face and then smoothed across his mandible. A thumb traced the blue of his clan markings. He opened his eyes and found her kneeling, looking up at him with such pleading that he felt a low keen rise in his throat.

“I know. It’s not you, Vakarian. Trust me,” she said, and her voice held venom that made him chirp again. __No, no, no!__ But she wasn’t wrong. It wasn’t him. He was game for whatever she’d throw at him, game enough to get involved with a human in the first place, willing to keep at a distance because that’s what she needed, and it was the only way he could have her. But it wasn’t her, either, not really. It was this Spirits cursed asteroid, and the way living on it was eating her alive.

Shepard was gazing up at him with an expression that he thought might be grief, brows drawn down and mouth pinched like she was in pain, and when he locked eyes with her, and his body dropped forward until he found himself resting his crest against her forehead, and the talons in his throat moved to his heart. __Please… let me…__

His hands went to her waist, and he was looking down at her, she was below him, reaching into his arms and for just a moment he felt something fall away from her-- the weight of whatever it was she was carrying.

"Do you want… can I kiss you?” His voice came out halting, rich with a tone in his subvocals he recognized, a tone that scared him. Whatever this feeling was, growing between them, was not something he could tell her now. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe never. He needed to think, because the word love had started blooming in his mind and it wasn’t going away. That wasn’t what they needed right now, he couldn’t tell her. But… he could __show__ her. Being physical, he was good at. Touching her was easy-- funny that it should be so easy with an alien whose food he couldn’t even eat. The talking? Much harder. He would have to prepare.

She tilted her head, pulling away from his crest slightly to look at him, and he was relieved to see a familiar, crooked smile and a moment later their mouths met, her lips soft and hot on his plates. He came apart then, gently disintegrating into the kiss and going into orbit around it, pressing his face plates against those soft lips that were so clever, lips that curved into secret, teasing smiles and could do things like __flex__ and __suck__. He tilted his head up until she could run her lips around the edges of his mouth, and after a moment he thrust his head forward, his longer, rougher tongue seeking her slick, short one to wrap around and massage it until she let out a surprised moan. At the sound a sudden, dizzying rush squeezed his chest, making him desperate to feel her naked against him. Now.

She pulled away, and he could feel her breath stutter against his cheek. “Well that… escalated,” she breathed.

“Shepard, I…” Spirits, he was too pushy, went too far. It was impossible to be near her without __wanting__ her, every fiber of his being attuned to her body like he was a compass and she was a planetary pole, and at this rate, he was always going to be pointing towards her. “Is this… I’m sorry, if it’s too much or you don’t want--”

She leaned away to study him, on her knees between his legs. “I’d love to blow off some steam,” she said quickly. “If you want to.”

He nodded. “Yes,” he managed. Steam. Stupid human expression. There was a lot of steam to blow off, though, so they didn’t hesitate. He wore only his under armor, not bothering to get dressed again after shedding his gear earlier that day, after getting patched up. His mind shied away. For this one moment, he wasn’t going to think of Archangel, or failure, or dying. He was going to get naked and fuck Shepard until they were both senseless. His suit was easy to get out of, slipping around his hips and then off his legs as he guided the spur sleeves carefully, disconnecting the hotlink to his visor and tossing the garment aside. After a moment, and for the second time that day, he unhooked the visor from its place around the side of his skull and leaned from the bed to put it carefully on the table nearby, catching a glimpse of the newly engraved letters on the inside of the eyepiece.

Shepard’s breathing was ragged as she sat on the floor, kicked off thick soled boots, tugged off her clothes, shrugging out of her leather jacket and then the white top, and the pants that showed off the clean, wrong-bent lines of her lean legs.

“I’m honored,” Shepard said, with a wry twist of her mouth.

“What?”

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you without that damn thing. It’s like I’m finally seeing you fully naked.” She was looking at the visor, but her eyes darted back to him and dragged down his body with what he could only call an appreciative look.

He looked down at his torso, the ropy edge of his cowl leading down into his abdomen and missed the inrush of data, the ability to record or take a snapshot on a whim, the constant feeling of knowing every last detail of his surroundings, but it was worth it, in that moment, to have nothing between them.

“Sometimes it’s nice to unplug,” he said, drawing her up by her elbows, and she leaned in to kiss him again

The silence between them was punctuated by his subvocals, ramping up into a steady purr, and her sharp intake of breath she stood while his hands roamed her waist, her belly, and he slowly pulled her into his lap, her legs on either side of his hips.

She froze with her hands on his neck, and he felt a sudden stab of concern. “I just remembered something…” He waited for the bad news, for her to push away and shake her head and say it was too much, that this was more than blowing off steam and they both knew it... “Krul has the place bugged.”

Garrus laughed as relief punched through him. So she knew about that?

“I know. I asked him to.” Operational security. Enemy infiltration. Curiosity. He had many reasons to keep an eye on the comings and goings of his Base.

Her brows twitched down and then she laughed, clearly puzzled. “You did? Archangel is a bunch of paranoid assholes, you know that?”

Garrus shrugged as his hands found her collar bones, tracing the sharp lines of bone and muscle across her chest and shoulders, drawing a talon up her throat so she shuddered. “Like attracts like, apparently,” he said, the purr deepening now that he knew what had given her pause.

“He’ll be able to hear us, if he’s got those mics on,” she said, another shudder wracking her body as he traced his talon down her shoulder, drawing a fine white line on her skin. She sounded... excited by the prospect.

He leaned forward to purr into her ear, suddenly feeling wicked. “Then you’ll just have to be… very… very quiet.” There were many words that could be used to describe Shepard, but “quiet” was not one of them.

“I can be quiet.” She was grinning.

“Uh huh. I’ll believe it when I see it. Er... hear it. Or… don’t hear it.”

__Smooth, Vakarian._ _

“Try me,” she shot back.

“Oh, I’m going to.”

He caught the scent of her arousal as she settled into his lap, leaning back into his arms and rocking slightly. She put three fingers in her mouth, sucking as she gazed up at him and after a moment she drew the fingers out, slick with saliva (humans had so much saliva… she’d left a wet mark on the pillow the morning after, in the motel) and rubbed the fluids from her mouth into her cunt, smiling with hooded eyes.

__Are you trying to give me a heart attack, woman?_ _

He growled, the sight of her touching herself and the sharp, musky smell of her cunt making his cock flow out from behind his quickly spreading plates, gleaming with his his own fluids and writhing slightly with the pressure of desire.

She scooted forward to wrap her legs around his waist and gripped him tight with her thighs like she’d never let go, making him groan half in pain, half in pleasure as the newly closed shrapnel wounds protested their movements, but he didn’t say anything. There was no way he was going to ask her to slow down for fear of hurting him, because he could tell she __needed this.__ He could feel the heat of her against his abdomen, and he groaned as as his cock sought her cunt. He didn’t have time for his normal games, not holding himself sheathed because they wanted each other __now__. He wanted her just like this, suspended between his hands, catching light like bright copper and refracting it so he was simply dazzled by her.

He grabbed hold of her ass and pressed the narrow tip of his cock along her opening. She leaned in, bearing down, but when she moaned, low and throaty, he stopped, gripped her ass to keep her from going lower.

“What?” She was squirming in his grip, trying to push him inside, and he chuckled.

“Quiet, remember?” His mandibles went wide in a grin as as she made a face, and a rush of pure, savage desire for her hit his gut. He wanted her struggling, silent, unable to make a sound because it was what he told her to do, what he __wanted.__

“Quiet. Right,” she confirmed in a overblown whisper, as her hands scrabbled for purchase on his hip spurs to pull him close as he released the grip he had on her ass. She bit back a moan, which to his ears ended up more of a squeak. Garrus huffed a laugh and with a slow grind of his hips, let her lower herself onto his cock, letting each ridge pass into her inch by agonizing inch so she was squirming to get closer, not stopping until her cunt swallowed him to his thick base. He held her hips down and kept her still as he shuddered into her warmth, and had to keep a grip on his own voice, wanting to cry out his pleasure. His cock curled inside of her, and her body arched into his, seeking more contact as he started rocking his hips in a slow grind.

“Mmmm, that…” she murmured, and he froze, raising a brow plate in a gesture he’d picked up from his human crewmates on the Normandy. Eyebrow raise. Williams used to do it.

“Oh, come on,” Shepard moaned and he shook his head. __Silence.__ She stilled, quieted, and then he leaned into her, pinning her thighs with his elbows and rocking her down into him to match the rhythm of his hips. He was going painfully slow, swallowing groans, wanting to thrust hard and fast back into her warm, tight softness, but he was rewarded each time their bodies met as she ground her hips into him hard before he pulled away again. It was delicious, silent agony as his subvocals began to rumble their protest.

He drew back a bit, and their eyes locked, foreheads pressed together as they found a slow, deep rhythm and lost themselves in it, her usual moans muted to whimpers and little mewls of desire that didn’t grow in volume as he increased the force, if not the speed of each thrust, lifting her hips and driving them back down into him, slow and savage. The ragged beat of her breath gave him a tempo, her eyes drank him in and gave him intention, wanting to drag this moment out for eternity, no need for words between them, like it would have been between turians who could just communicate with their lovers by sight and sound and smell alone. Her eyes were wide and desperate for approval. __Please__ , they seemed to say to him, __see me__.

 _ _I see you, Shepard__ , he thought as he worked her body with his own, over and over until her head fell back and her breasts bounced in front of his nose. She bit her wrist to keep from crying out, begging under her breath for release but going no louder than their ragged breathing between whispered “pleases.” His tongue lashed out to lave at her nipple and she shuddered, but didn’t make a sound.

“Look at me,” he said, his voice soft and wicked, and her eyes flew open, dark and gray as gunmetal and they locked with his as she bit down on her wrist, trying so hard to stay silent… not for the mics that Krul had presumably bugged the room with-- Garrus didn’t give a shit if anyone overheard them. He had asked her to be quiet, demanded it, and she was quiet for him. His talons circled her neck, cradling the back of her head and she whimpered, falling back into his hand.

“Squeeze,” she whispered. “Please,” and after a moment’s hesitation, his hands tightened around her throat, and the talons that had been in his chest all night were shredding him inside. She was __beautiful__ , and sharp as glass and... She drew a ragged breath and jerked suddenly, hands flying to grasp at his shoulders, his carapace, anything, but he held her up as her body spasmed. She tried so hard not to cry out, but whimpered as she clenched around him hard, and that was it for him as well, he came undone inside of her, sinking his teeth into her chest, just below her collarbone as he felt the ache of his release pulse into her over and over. He tasted rich, metallic blood and he dragged his tongue across the little punctures his teeth left her.

__Oh Spirits._ _

Human blood. She even __tasted__ like copper.

He had her wrapped up in his arms, rocking gently through the aftershocks. Slowly he crawled backwards on the mattress and laid them out on their sides, and she hummed as they shifted around each other, his cock slipping out slowly to rest on his thigh, sated for now, though he always wanted more... Blood, on her chest. He licked the wound and her fingers traced the hide and scale on his neck, eyes glazed over and half unseeing.

“You’re bleeding… I didn’t mean…”

“It’s fine,” she said softly.

“I should have asked--”

“I like it, Vakarian. I think you’ve probably figured it out by now, but I’ve got a thing for pain.”

He hummed. Of course he’d noticed. He was also starting to notice that he had a thing for inflicting it...

She breathed gently, lips parted, hair flowing around her in tight curls. He reached up to play with her hair, pulling a curl out of it’s tight spiral and then let it go, watching as it bounced back to its former position. After a moment he settled with arms around her, and she found that sweet spot around his cowl that made her feel like innocence and light held against his chest.

She was incredible. A complete paradox. Completely gray.

His body hurt from the fight and the sex, and her soft, half voiced hums soothed him, and for a while they drifted.

“I’m thinking about… leaving,” she said, eyes still closed.

“Leaving?” His thoughts of blood and spiraling red hair derailed and he went very still. Her eyes were still closed, as if she were gazing into some unlivable future.

“Get the hell off this rock. Go somewhere warm, and bright, away from the drugs and the gangs. Maybe go to the beach, maybe… I dunno. Somewhere not Alliance. A colony.” She was daydreaming, her voice tired and far away. The feeling in his chest tightened as he thought about her leaving Omega. Being apart was one thing. That was normal. But not knowing if they were ever going to see each other again? Not working with her, not having her in bed, tight and bright between his hands?

“You could… come with me.”

 _ _Yes.__ Then another voice:  _ _No. No more running.__

He couldn’t leave his squad. He thought about Sensat and Weaver, and how they couldn’t imagine life without each other. Was that what happened when a turian bonded with a human? Was it just the same as a turian-turian bond? Butler would be fine, of course. Butler could lead… But what about Melenis? She was just learning how to be a person again, and Archangel gave her meaning. What about Sidonis? He was staring down his own darkness, and Garrus couldn’t leave him to suffer. He had to do something to help Sidonis. And all the others, giving their time, their effort, their lives? Krul and his brilliance? He couldn’t discount that to run away with… anyone. Not even Shepard.

He clamped down hard on his subvocals, spoke his words carefully, as if she were turian and would be able to hear the conflict in him. “I can’t leave the squad. I have to see this through.”

She was silent for a moment before her eyes fluttered open and she turned to look at him. “I know,” she said at last. “I know. The kids would be lost without you. But… it’s just… when is it done, Vakarian? How far are you going to go?” She shifted, propping herself up so her chest was resting on the point of his cowl-- it couldn’t be very comfortable, but he was _not_ going to complain about the view, or the feeling of _vekit_ skin slide across his plates as she settled even as his mind reeled. She didn’t understand… couldn’t understand that he was turian… a __bad__ turian, and this was his penance and she… she was...

“I just can’t shake the feeling that something bad is coming. Something big. Bigger than Omega, or gangs, or fighting with mercs, and I want to be ready. And not on Omega when it happens.”

 _Reapers._ No, that's not what she was talking about. The galaxy was always on the brink of one disaster or another. 

“I thought you wanted to go to the beach.”

She laughed, shifting so she could catch his eyes. “I wish that was a life I could have… I wish…” She rolled on her back, the movement startling and sudden. She was always sudden.

Sudden was the perfect word for her.

She lay on her back, staring up at the ceiling. “Can I tell you an Earth story? A human story?”

“Of course… you can tell me anything.” She smiled up at the ceiling and jumped into her tale, still pressing against him as she spoke, hands wandering to his spurs and ridges, directionless as idle as his own hands on the softness of her ass, the dimples at the small of her back. Cuddling, she’d called it.

“On ancient Earth, many religions believed in an underworld, a sort of afterlife. My birth father’s ancestors called this underworld ‘Hades.’ The story is about this one man named Sisyphus who ended up there after he died, like you do.”

“Like you do,” Garrus echoed, caught between amusement and fascination. This was the first time she’d ever mentioned any sort of family-- a father. He was thirsty for details, but instead she shared a myth.

“He was a king in life, and different stories have different origins for him-- but he was always incredibly powerful, cunning and clever. Sometimes he was a good guy or a bad guy but he always ended up pissing off the Gods because of his hubris.”

“What is hubris?”

“Pride to a fault. Thinking that you are capable of something that is impossible. In ancient Greece, hubris often put important heroes at odds with the Gods, who would then teach the hero nasty lessons. Like, really nasty lessons.”

“Uh huh.” Hubris sounded like a spirit, but from the way she was telling the story, humans looked at hubris as a negative, but it might look good on a turian. Or maybe hubris was like _Naksea_ , a concept-sound used to tell stories, to scare children, to teach lessons? And what about this “underworld ” concept? He tried to imagine what Hades was like, and couldn’t picture anything different than any other shitty place in the galaxy. Was it ordinary? Was it separate? Was it parallel? Was it __real__?

“So, Sisyphus, he ends up being tasked with rolling a boulder up a hill as his eternal punishment.” Well, Hades had hills and boulders, apparently. She continued: “Every day he rolls that boulder up the hill and if he stops to rest it rolls down again. He never quite makes it to the top, but no matter how far he gets, the sun sets and he goes to sleep. And when he wakes up, the boulder is on the bottom of the hill again.” She paused for effect, or to make sure he didn’t have any questions, though it seemed fairly straight forward. “And he does that… forever.”

“Okay,” Garrus said. She’d made her point. He should feel offended, or defensive, but it was hard to feel anything but good when he had her pressed against him like she was, so resigned himself to the lesson she was trying to impart. “I get it. But I have one question. Is Omega this ‘Hades’ place, or is it the bouder?”

She rolled over to rest against his cowl again, planting a kiss on his mandible. “It’s both, Vakarian. It’s both.”

 

~~~

 

They traded stories of human and turian myth back and forth for a while, and he grew fascinated these stories which imparted what passed for human wisdom. The alien names of vain gods and tortured heroes stuck in his mind: Sisyphus, Odysseus, Artemis, Narcissus, Echo, Hephaestus.

He told her of the __Naksea__ , the sound of spirit death, and the Spirits themselves, those eternal reverberations of turian-ness.

He explained that Spirits worked like gravity. When someone did something particularly turian (like sacrifice themselves, or dedicate their life to service) they created a pull around them, attracting and reinforcing community and unity. Anything that was remembered grew spirit, and those spirit-memories pooled in the well created by groups of turians who remembered. The more who remembered, the more unified the memory, the more present the Spirit, which in turn reinforced memory.

 _ _Spirits of what?__ she’d asked. It was hard to explain. They weren’t __anything__. They were just… Spirits, created by existence and interaction. She said she understood, but he was sure she missed the nuance. Sprits were not people, like her gods, they were just... Spirits. They had no narrative to give them structure or story. They were simply the memory of something.

Shepard laughed and then it was her turn to tell him a story about girl who was stolen from her mother and fed fruit seeds and had to stay away half the year, and that was why there was winter. He didn’t understand how eating fruit could cause seasons to change, but it was beautiful.

They told each other these nonsense stories until her voice had gone slow and then quieted all together, worry lines between her brows and around her mouth and eyes smoothed away by sleep. Only then did he succumb to his exhaustion, arms woven around her. Later he woke in the big bed in the private room, sore and aching from the abused and scabbing shrapnel wounds on his arms and abdomen, she was gone.

He looked around the room, his brain slowly ramping up to acceptable working speed. Wasn't that just like her? Perhaps she was worried about her biotics. Garrus groaned as he lifted himself from the bed. His arms remembered the shape of her and his mouth remembered the taste of her blood on his tongue as he reached for his visor and hooked it around his head. He looked down and realized it had been resting on a data pad, one that hadn't been there yesterday, as far as he could recall. He hit a button and a note sprawled across the screen.

_V.:_

_Had to head out early. You were dreaming about something good, I think, and I didn't want to wake you. Turian bites leave a hell of a bruise. I like it._

_-S._

 

The cold text blinked at him, but the words felt _warm_ , and he smiled and made a happy hum in his chest. 

He'd been making those noises an awful lot lately, and he frowned at a sudden realization. 

"Shepard," he said, experimentally, and his subvocals twanged with... something intense. He said her name again and he pinpointed it this time: his subvocals were laced with devotion. Love. That word, the one he kept thinking last night, was not so much a word but a feeling sitting like a bubble in his chest that refused to leave him, or his vocal chords alone. 

The bubble sat warm and comforting in his chest, but was met by another feeling, hot and tight. Panic.


	16. Where You'll Find Me Now

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 100k! I can't even believe it! And I kind of love that it was this chapter that put me over the edge... 
> 
> Thank you ALL so much for your feedback and support, squees, kudos and your readership. This is the longest cohesive story I've ever written and it's not even done yet!

_Love is turning you out_  
_Sliding worry round_  
_I try to warn its waiting game_  
_To bring that spectre down_

“Mongrel Heart” - Broken Bells

**Garrus**

Garrus loved Shepard. He _loved her._

Was _in_ love with her, too, but those were states separate from each other. He loved things about her, loved who she was, despite and perhaps because of her damage and her flaws, his inability to pin her down. She was Shepard. She was dangerous, and talented, and driven. She was funny and sweet. She was angry. She was ineffable. To define her was to pin her down, put her under scrutiny and she hated scrutiny and she should never, ever be pinned down. It was her nature. He loved that about her. And yet… he was also _in love_ with her, which felt like a hollow bubble in his chest and not just a warm appreciation for her as a person. He was in love with her, wanted her as _part_ of him in that deeply turian way that demanded a physiological and psychological bond that could not be undone without causing serious… damage.

But that would require pinning her down.

So Garrus panicked.

But he panicked quietly, because he was Archangel, and there were operations to oversee and weapons to calibrate. Externally, it was business as usual, but the feeling of _panic_ rode around in his chest like an uninvited guest, making his subvocals crack and flare at unexpected moments. Sidonis wasn’t around, having crawled off somewhere to lick his wounds and brood, which was a small mercy. It was bad enough that Vortash had given him a funny, almost sympathetic look while Garrus had zoned out when the mechanic had asked for access codes to fix the shutter delays in the basement, and he’d had to repeat himself. Twice. Sensat was stiff as a board when she gave her report, not looking him in the eye as she pestered him about tearing apart the Blue Suns defenses and tracking down Tarak, and Garrus even growled at Mierin when he tried to wheedle more money for extra explosives...

He wanted to ask Sensat what it was like, being in love with a human. He wanted to ask if she and Weaver were bonded or even if they _could_ bond, and what it was like… if it would always feel like this even if Shepard reciprocated because….

Because she wasn’t Turian.

He should ask Sensat. He should talk to Weaver.

But he wasn’t ready for the answer.

What he wanted to know was _how_ it had happened. When had he fallen in love with her?

And he had a way to find out.

It was with no small amount of guilt that Garrus found himself alone, flat on the couch, fringe hanging over the arm, staring intently into his visor, eyes slightly narrowed as he watched a recording.

 _“Humans and chocolate have a long and sordid history.”_ Shepard’s face was practically shining with glee-- did she have some internal light source that made her shine like that? That soft, mobile face flit through expression without settling, capricious. It made him dizzy, fascinated.

She had initiated. In the recording she stood in front of him so all he saw was a mass of dark red hair, the quirk of her lips as she joked about reach and flexibility. He remembered her smell in that moment, so alien-- she smelled like the vacuum of space, a void in his lexicon of scents, like weird soap and human skin. His brain had no better analogy than _keili_ fruit, and it was heady and elastic and he wanted to bite her and taste her. He _had_ bitten her and tasted her. He watched the vid and felt his plates shift now as they had up on the roof when they had stumbled over their initial advances and he’d been afraid of an allergic reaction, afraid he’d hurt her. Then she’d brought him down stairs. Of course he’d recorded _that._ He felt justified in recording _that._ He needed a record of how to get into her place in case of emergency, because Spirits knew that emergencies followed Shepard around like a shadow and she wouldn’t let _anyone_ help her, not even if she was stabbed and bleeding out.

She was _infuriating_. Damn right he’d recorded the way to get into her house. Her… hanger.

He sped up the vid, letting it play out rapid fire, eyes flickering to follow and he noticed that the camera of his visor wasn’t trained on where he was going like he’d really intended, but the hips swaying in front of him and the long, narrow waist attached. Those hips zipped along at high speed and the camera scoped out her hangar, looking at mods, and her fish tank and plants and it should have seemed strange to him that she had these little touches of domesticity in her life, but it _wasn’t._ She had a _home._ He turned the video back to normal speed as she showed him the old, dimpled scars on her arm that made her sink bumpy and discoloured, white instead of brown. Varen bite. That was the first time he’d touched her skin with the intention of just touch, with no other reason, but he’d regretfully still worn his gauntlets. He watched as his talons caressed the skin, sneaking a look at her face-- she had this secret smile, more of a smirk really, as she gazed at him.

Down in her home, that massive hangar, her face turned upward into the camera so all he could see was the gray of her eye, her wide and rounded nose, part of that soft, obliging mouth. He could see a scar faint across her chin and lip, count darker spots of pigmentation that splashed her cheeks-- “freckles” they were called, and pores, the place where sweat came out of. Humans were so strange, soft and sponge like, even their skin breathing, but their hands were too clever for him to escape now that he’d felt the way she sought his cowl, the spaces between the plates spreading all over his body, and then his waist, the dances those Spirits-cursed fingers made along his hide-- Spirits. He thought talons were strong, but they were nothing compared to pinching, pulling, the massage of blunt fingertips deep in his tissue, places he’d never been touched.

He’d recorded it all-- up until she’d started taking off her clothes. He might be an asshole, and he knew that he had violated some kind of boundary by recording _at all_ , but he drew a line at nudity, at se . He hadn’t meant to keep record at all-- he was simply making a vid of their target practice because he’d been showing off, but then she’d been half business and half teasing and she’d looked so… Shepard with her daft grin and wild red fringe that he’d kept the camera rolling. It felt good to know that he’d have this-- could study it later, because even then there had been intense feelings happening and those intense feelings were very confusing because they were being caused by a human. A small, soft, capricious human with the steel-cut eyes and a quick, mocking laugh.

Making quick little recordings of her had turned into something of a bad habit, though. He’d recorded other other moments in the months since they’d first had sex. The clips were intimate. They were close to her, or far. Clips of her in combat, of her teasing him, or leaning in to kiss him when they stole some time to fuck. He should delete these. He should… but he could not stop watching. He needed to hear something.

He had to know…. How far back did it go?

 _“I mean, preening it’s…. bonded mate intimate. Or family intimate. Very private.”_ Two weeks ago. He paused the recording, staring at the image of her, arm stretched around his head and half blocking the camera, looking up at… at him, soft, wide lips parted so he could see the wide flat surface of her two front teeth. Her expression was in that moment full of wonder, as if he’d presented some mystical secret. In a moment she’d be pulling away in embarrassment at violating a boundary of their agreed upon parameters. Just sex. Not intimacy. But just before… her face was so…. open and he could see her teeth… and he snapped a screen capture of it. He’d delete the video, but he wanted to keep that image of her. He wanted to remember her open and full of wonder as she ran her fingers along his fringe, finding the gaps and teasing with those fingers, not…. Whatever she was becoming now, tight and closed and further and further away.

He skipped to the next video. He was telling her about Palaven, the most innocuous conversation about solar radiation, but that _tone_ in his sub vocals? He knew that tone, had heard it in his mother’s and father’s voices when they were speaking even of ordinary things and _not_ of their love for each other. He heard it when Sensat talked to Weaver. When a physical and emotional connection lined up just so in a pairing it was like an eclipse. That’s when a turian got that tone in their voice. It was not something Garrus could control-- nor was it a tone he’d heard in his voice… ever. He’d been in love once in twice, in lust several more than that, but that tone was reserved for bonding. Turians didn’t consider bonding until after 30, often waited as late as 40 or 50, once they had found their place in the world. Garrus had only just turned 30, and hearing that tone in his voice would have scared him at the best of times, if it had been directed at another turian. It wasn’t a tone for just sex, just blowing off steam. This was a harmonic rich in feeling, imbuing even the most casual or direct questions with only one meaning. Love.

His mind rebelled. Human. Allergic to each other. Turian. She had so many secrets. He had so many secrets. She was dangerous. So was he. He was more dangerous than she was because he actually didn’t care if he lived or died, whereas Shepard seemed to have a direct comm line to the Spirits of life and will and luck. She was the essence of vitality. And he wanted to drink it from her, take it into himself. He wanted to become… not him, and her, but _them._

“Arch? You in there? Hello?”

Garrus jumped, guilt slamming into him as if he’d been caught with the Hanar issue of Fornax. He blinked to minimize the video of Shepard wriggling out from under him, grinning as she threw a jab at his shoulder, wearing nothing but a loose shirt and the supportive undergarments humans seemed to like. He sat up from his paralyzed position on the couch. If he’d been wearing leggings instead of his armor, his arousal would have been painfully obvious.

“Butler, what is it?”

“Just seeing if anyone was around. I’ve got some down time and a turian at the clinic gave me some booze as payment. Thought I’d share.” He held two bottles of liquor, one that Garrus recognized as turian make, the other bottle unfamiliar and probably human. There were enough dextro members of their team to make it seem casual, but Garrus had a suspicious mind. If Butler was just looking for social time with anyone of the team, why had he asked for Archangel by name?

He shoved down the flash of annoyance at Butler intruding on his vid-reviewing. Although Garrus felt a bit like a deviant or a voyeur, he’d also been reviewing their interactions like he might the record of a combat situation, so he could make notes on all the mistakes he’d made. Revise his tactics. Try to survive one more fight.

“Hm. Could use a drink.”

Butler settled onto the chair across from Garrus and set down the bottles and two glasses-- one turian, the other a weird, round and wide shape that human mouths could wrap around to sip. They were so different… humans and turians. He was staring at Butler’s mouth, a mixture of horror and desire parading across his features as he remembered what Shepard’s mouth could… do.

“Credit for your thoughts?” Butler inquired.

Garrus tried not to jump as he tore his eyes away from Butler’s mouth, and that line of thought. “Not worth that much.”

“Uh huh. You look like you want to cry. And shoot things while you do it. Do turians even cry?”

“No…no crying. That’s an asari thing. And human, I guess.” Garrus shrugged. “We keen. Unconscious chest vocalization.”

“Was that the noise I heard when I walked in?” The glass with dextro spirits froze half way to Garrus’ mouth. He’d been keening? Fuck. He decided he really needed a drink and took a sip, letting the liquid slosh back into the deep channels below his tongue and then swallowed slowly, mandibles tight.

“Chocolate,” he said abruptly.

Butler looked momentarily worried, like the boss was losing his mind. “Okay?”

“You said to give her chocolate.”

“Oh, yeah. Shepard, huh?” Butler’s face twitched. Damn it, Garrus thought he was good at reading humans, but he was having a really hard time right now. He thought it was a smile, but it was gone too quickly

“Yeah.”

“Did she like it?” Garrus made a small hum in his chest, and was appalled to hear how much like a child he sounded. “I thought I was being friendly.”

“You were. Chocolate is a friendly gift.”

“More than friendly. The most friendly. I’ve never felt… friendlier.”

“Ah.” Butler considered this, brown eyes thoughtful. “I mean, it’s been pretty obvious what’s going on between you two for the past few months. I’m not going to pry, Arch, but do you have any questions? About humans, I mean.”

“I imagine I should, but my mind’s a little blank at the moment.”

What did Shepard call him? Saint Butler? It was amazing the man had survived in such an environment with such a kind heart-- thinking about the rest of the team, Garrus realized he was the _only_ truly kind person among them. Garrus was driven (obsessive, a small and critical voice said). Shepard was stubborn and deadly. Sidonis was sly. Ripper was ruthless. He went down the list, a word that defined each team member blooming in his mind. None of those words were particularly flattering, except when it came to Butler. Any other male on the team, and even some of the women might have asked him inappropriate questions about Shepard, tried to rib him about their painfully obvious relationship, posture and banter in their masculinity, but not Bulter. Butler just looked at him with patient acceptance and asked if he had any questions.

“I’m… stunned.”

“Well, whatever is going on, it’s clearly not _bad_. The two of you have been like magnets since day one.”

“Spirits, no. Not bad. That’s the problem.” That twitch happened at the corner of the human’s mouth again, and Garrus confirmed that it was a smile.

Butler shook his head. “I’m not sure I’d use the word ‘problem’ to describe having feeling for someone, Arch. I don’t know your story, and I don’t know Shepard’s either, but… She’s a hell of a woman. Sometimes I think half the team has some kind of feelings for her. Attraction… or repulsion. She brings it out in people.”

Garrus couldn’t deny that-- Shepard had such an easy way with people-- unafraid to look them in the eye and make them feel seen, and heard. She cared about people on an individual level, all the way up to caring on a galactic scale. That she was also an elite warrior was just… unfathomable. No one could be that good with people _and_ that good at killing… except maybe Fisher. She was a natural leader-- or would be if she could manage to sit _still_ for half a second, and Spirits, he loved her for it.

Butler wasn’t done: “The two of you are scary, scary people. Together, you’re terrifying. The galaxy won’t know what hit it.”

“Thanks,” Garrus muttered, spite edging his tone. “But I don’t think there’s a ‘together’ that’s really possible here.” “You don’t think she can reciprocate?”

The word reciprocate was dizzying in its implications. “I don’t know… she’s a raw nerve. I’m a raw nerve. That’s a lot of raw right there, and every turian instinct in me says to seek stability. Ever rational fiber in me says this is the worst time, the worst place to be feeling anything-- let alone what I’m feeling right now. And that’s not even taking into account the species difference.” Butler smiled, a big, recognizable one this time. “That often happens. These things stalk us, sneak up on us. L--”

“Don’t say it.” Garrus was breathing hard, predator’s eyes pinning the word in Butler’s mouth before he could utter it. Garrus couldn’t say it out loud right now, so Butler sure as hell wasn’t allowed to. Not that word. Omega was not a place for that word. Butler backed off, taking a sip from his red sour smelling levo wine and sloshed in the long-stemmed glass.

The thing that had been working busily in Garrus’s his chest came out at last, under Butler’s calm, patient gaze, his holding silence.

“How could she… even consider me an option?” He held out his arms, presenting himself for judgment. “It’s absurd. I’m-- I feel… obsessed. But what could a human woman possibly see besides a wreck? A _turian_ wreck, which, let me tell you, is way worse than a human wreck. A turian wreck has spurs, and teeth, and talons, and....” _Failure._

“I think she sees a person, driven by a need to make the galaxy better. A person unafraid of pain and sacrifice. She sees herself in you.”

“How can you tell?”

Butler shrugged. “It’s the way you are around each other. The two of you are in each other’s orbit. Watching you work together is… it’s poetry.” Garrus snorted, remembering the time she almost died, overdosing on red sand and vomiting onto his arm, burning up one nerve at a time. If that was poetry, he didn’t really want to read the novel.

“We can’t even eat the same _food_. She’s technically allergic to me.” But they made it work. Part of the charm was… making it work. They made the difficulties theirs. They never got frustrated. They talked things out-- the physical things, at least. There was the cream, she took antihistamines when she needed to, and yeah, sometimes he stabbed her with an errant spur or she pulled on his plate the wrong way, but...

He should have felt unsure about sharing all of this with Butler, but he didn’t. It was an odd switch in power-- his heart was open and his sub vocals small, like he was talking to his father, except his father wasn’t chastising him for being too sensitive, to hot-headed, reactionary. He was, in this moment, given space to feel things that were not necessarily acceptable, but very natural.

“Life...uh, finds a way. You’ve already figured some of it out.”

 _She’s human!_ Said the tiny part of him that was a good turian. _And maybe that’s why I want to be with her_ , said the bad turian that was the rest of him. Both were wrong though. Spirits, he’d never met anyone like Shepard-- human, turian or otherwise. That’s why he… loved her.

No justification. No regrets. She was Shepard, and he loved her. He might even be able to tell her that one day… after Omega.

After Omega. There was a phrase he’d never put together before. She was leaving-- she was up to something secret, private and wouldn’t tell him what it was, other than try to warn him that she needed to go, might disappear again. Maybe she could wait until he wrapped up his work with Archangel, transitioned leadership or helped the squad make a clean break. Then maybe she would tell him, include him, and he could...

“Say, why don’t you ask her out?” Butler was studying his wine carefully, with a slight smile. “Out? Out of where?”

“No, I mean on a date.”

“Oh.” Garrus had never really _dated_. He was a disaster at it, especially if that someone was outside of the context of work. Turians didn’t really _date_ as a rule, though on the Citadel there had been a growing trend towards dating coupled with casual sex in the past decade or so. For Garrus, dates were awkward, what with the required smooth talking and the grand gestures and compliments he never quite got the hang of. He prefered to get right to the sex and keep feelings to a minimum, and generally found most turians agreed. “I don’t know if that’s such a good idea.”

“Why not? Spend some time with her outside of all this, get to know her a bit. Show here you’re interested. Maybe try talking to her, away from all… this.”

His mind went back to last night…. Oh, last night when she’d been so silent and pleading and how she’d said it wasn’t him. They’d been so close to just… talking it out but neither of them wanted to make the difficult call they would have to make if either of them pushed too far, made needs too… explicit. “She knows I’m interested. I think that’s the problem…I don’t think she wants anyone to get to know her.”

“I think you’re wrong, Arch.” Butler looked serene with his fingers steepled over the bell of his glass, regarding him with warm, brown eyes. “Tell you what. I’ll host. It’ll be a nice, casual dinner. My wife’s been wanting to meet you anyway, and you can use the date as an excuse not to stay too long. You’ll be doing _me_ a favor.”

Garrus was decidedly not serene as he nodded slowly.

Ask her out. On a date. Right. In theory, no problem.

In practice? Well, he needed to practice.

~~~

**Shepard**

The last thing she’d wanted was to get out of bed. Vakarian had her caged in his long arms roped with lean muscle, nose pressed into her neck, his body furnace hot and his purr was like a motor lulling her back into sleep. But Krul had pinged her, and then pinged her again, and the data was ready, and… she had to go.

The second to last thing she’d wanted to do after getting out of bed was leave a damn note. But, Vakarian would worry, and she already caused him enough of that. Would probably cause him more soon. It was the least she could do.

Krul was _infallible_. He’d cracked the encryption and given it over without a word. He’d probably made a copy, but Shepard didn’t care. He already had enough dirt on Shepard to ruin her three times over, so this little blip of data about a species that didn’t _actually_ exist was nothing, so long as he didn’t tell Vakarian.

Now Shepard sat cross legged on the floor in her loft, watching her galactic holomap render the data and bloom into visuals like it had been for the past few hours: there were sighting and possible sightings, and potential targets, trajectories, population estimates and timetables.

She watched the data visualize, and thought about Collectors. The name. “Collectors” implied that they had an agenda-- to collect. Collect what? She was starting to get the feeling that the answer, at least for the moment, was “humans.”

But what caused the Collectors change their patterns after centuries of the same behavior? They were mysterious boogiemen, traders seeking technology and genetic samples before scampering back beyond the Omega 4 Relay to hide away for a decade or two before being spotted again. Of course, measuring Collector sightings in the span of decades assumed that they were sighted every time they left the Relay. Collectors probably had ways of moving unseen, and the Council half of the galaxy didn’t even believe they were more than boogeymen horror stories, used to scare people away from the Terminus, used to threaten children into behaving. But Shepard grew up on Omega. Shepard had seen her entire family slaughtered by slavers.

She knew with bone deep certainty that boogiemen were real.

So Collectors. Collecting. And yet… collecting was not something that was done in such large numbers. Collection implied that the thing collected had a unique origin or quality, that it was… original. But humans disappearing on such a scale was not creating a collection… They were taking indiscriminately. Colonies empty of thousands that should be there, no sign of struggle? Lists of populations? That was not collecting… that was harvesting.

They were _harvesting_ human colonies. Why? Shepard felt a cold certainty in her gut as her reasoning solidified. She wasn’t sure if she believed in signs and portents of impending doom, but enigmatic aliens abducting settlements, leaving ghost-town colonies with no trace of struggle was certainly not a sign of good things to come.

So Aria was right, after all. She couldn’t go to the Alliance or the Council with this, despite that it was human colonies being targeted-- they’d laugh at the mad merc from the Terminus, like Fisher had been laughed at when he’d brought up the Reaper threat. Except the difference here was that the Collectors were _real_.

Another icon pinged up on her holomap, close to the galactic core. Presrop. Hadn’t she just been there? The scar on her belly gave a small twinge as if in sympathy. Shepard honed in on the data attached to the ping on the map. According to the data, seventy humans had been taken from Presrop just days before her visit to the abandoned mining operation….

Which would explain why the colony had been empty when she’d gotten there. It was obvious, in hindsight.

But then again, she hadn’t actually been alone on Presrop.

“Cerberus,” she breathed the name, remembering the logo. The assholes who took her shotgun and left her for dead. Three headed dog that guarded the gates to hell. So, they were either working with the Collectors, or collecting intel on them in order to strike a blow, and based on Cerberus’ feelings about humanity, she’d bet a credit to a bowl of noodles that it was the latter.

Cerberus…. there was a thought. The Council nor the Alliance would listen to her crackpot theories. But there were others out in the fringes of the Galaxy, people who might hear her out, give her some resources, help her find the truth, and they were already doing their own investigation.

She felt it with a certainty she could not explain. “Specter’s instinct,” Nihlus had called it.

_“Follow it down, into the low and dark places of the Galaxy. That’s where you’ll find real truth. Don’t flinch away from the difficult things you find, or the impossible things you must do.”_

Or had it been the other way around? The impossible things you find, the difficult things you must do. _Oh Nihlus._

She wanted him here so badly, it began to hurt, and tears pricked at her eyes. Nihlus. Had she grieved him? Honored his memory for long enough that he would no longer ghost her?

Was she forgetting him?

Or perhaps… replacing was a better word for what she was doing.

But that wasn’t right. Nihlus had been her mentor, a teacher. Vakarian was nothing like a mentor to her. If anything, she was mentoring _him_ in the hellish ways of Omega. But more accurately, they felt like… partners.

She needed to focus. Stop thinking about turians, dead or alive.

She needed to send a message. Krull would never forgive her if he found out about this… and she had no doubt he’d left a backdoor into her system when he’d set it up. Still, only her terminal was set up to bounce transmissions off of a half a hundred comm buoys across the sector before making its way to the recipient, and she didn’t need anyone looking for people sending messages to Cerberus. The only way Krul would find out was if he had physical access to her terminal, and he wasn’t allowed over. No one was.

She began to type with the holo keypad that bloomed to life from her omnitool, fingers flying over the sphere of glowing orange in her hand.

_I know the three headed dog was present on Presrop. You are guarding the relay to hell in the Omega Nebula. I have data and expertise. When and where do we meet?_

She signed off using her darknet handle, ALPHASHEEP.

Message sent, she fell back on her bed, staring at the draping curtain of plants. _Don’t panic. Just let things unfold. Wait for a reply. Don’t make plans, don’t make assumptions._

Her omnitool pinged a few minutes later.

“That was fast,” she muttered. And on the wrong device... but glancing down, it wasn’t from a human terrorist organization. It was from Vakarian.

~~~

**Chat Transcript:**

V 1620: Hey

S 1621: Hi

S 1624: Need something?

V 1624: What are you doing tomorrow?

S 1625: You, probably

V 1625: Hey, that’s my joke.

S 1625: Not joking.

S 1627: But seriously, something on your mind?

V 1627: Butler invited me to dinner. Want to join?

S 1628: Are you asking me out on a date?

V 1628: Turians don’t date.

S 1628: Right. Like they don’t kiss

V 1629: Exactly. So?

S 1631: So… at his house?

V 1631: Apparently. His wife wants to meet me

S 1631: And you want me as a buffer.

V 1631: Something like that.

S 1634: Okay. Sure.

V 1634 : Okay. Good. It’ll be fun… or normal, or something

S 1635: Yes. Normal. No one shooting at us, no setting mercs on fire. Normal, clean, fun

V 1635: Well, when you put it that way…. It sounds kind of boring. But there will be food. I hear his wife’s making lasagna, whatever that is

S 1635: Alright, alright. But just this once! To try it out. See how this “normal” thing works

V 1635: It’s a date.

S 1635: I thought you said turians didn’t date…?

V 1635: See you tomorrow, Shepard

~~~

Shepard closed down her omnitool and stared at the wall. The corners of her mouth tugged up into a smile as she bit her lip, mind racing.

What was he up to? She could feel his hesitation even over chat-- the long pauses, the typing and the erasing. She wondered if Butler had put him up to it, the sneaky little matchmaker. She knew… she knew Vakarian wanted more from her, and he knew she couldn’t give it. Not here, not on Omega. But a date? It didn’t sound too bad. They could have a nice dinner. Talk about… normal things. Pretend their lives weren’t irrevocably FUBAR for just one night.

Right?

And afterwards, she’d just have to tell him that she was leaving. She’d just have to ask him to come with her. He’d say no, of course. But she would ask.

And maybe… just maybe, when she asked and he said no, she would say goodbye before she left Omega.

~~~

A date. It was a date. Shepard had a date. She agreed to go on a date and she was going. On a date. Her brain was having trouble processing the concept.

But she was… excited about the prospect. Maybe not so excited about how _awkward_ it made her feel, how it was probably going to be an uncomfortable evening not filled with gunfire but with smalltalk, but a little bubble of nerves sat singing in her chest, making her feel slightly electrified. Kind of like biotics, but less… deadly.

Probably.

Shepard didn’t date. But she was going to. For him. Because of him.

She even got dressed up in something besides a jumpsuit or a leather jacket. Nothing fancy, just a pair of high waisted black slacks with a touch of silver at the hips, and boots with a heel, and a high necked shirt with cutout shoulders that would show of the sharp lines of her collar bones and the blooming bruise where he’d bitten her. She shuddered as her fingers passed over the mark. _Damn_ if that hadn’t been one of the sexiest things, his tongue laving at the blood and the punctures, the _growl_ he’d emitted as she’d cried silently beneath him as they came together…

Focus, Shepard.

She leaned against the vanity sink, staring at the bruise, but her eyes drifted up to study her reflection. Sharp bones made a hollow of her cheeks. They didn’t used to be that sharp. She was sick… her nervous system eating her up day by day. Her lips were full, brows thick and arched above stormy gray eyes. Shepard thought she always looked a little bored, a little uninterested, and she tried to square her shoulders, look a little more direct and less like she was ready to roll her eyes.

It didn’t really work, and she slouched back into her usual disaffected posture. She had to do something about her hair… the humidity was making it stand on end, practically a cloud of auburn around her face, so she pulled it back into a poofy bun, and after a moment’s consideration, put on some makeup, just a touch around her eyes to darken them. She hadn’t worn makeup in what was probably years, but she’d always liked the way her eyes seemed a bit more stormy when lined with black.

Was she doing this right? Was this the way you got ready for a date?

She flew to Gozu, left the shuttle parked in an abandoned lot, and met him on the corner.

He was wearing civs and had just a side-arm _,_ leaning casually against the side of a prefab, and it looked _weird_ to see him so unarmed and unarmored.

But he looked good. So good. And confounding. Like… how did turian clothes even _work._

“Like what you see, Shepard?” he said with a lopsided twitch of his mandible as she slammed the shuttle door closed behind her, not talking her eyes of his waist, his arms, his face. Gods he was _handsome._ Had she always thought that?

Looking back, she probably had.

“Nah, just making a tactical assessment of how in the hell I’m getting you out of that suit later.”

“Right.” He looked pleased, had a hint of a swagger in his gait as they met halfway. “Uh… What’s that… on your eyes?” He leaned in close and she felt a rush of heat and embarrassment, and went to touch the dark, smokey smudge around her eyes.

“Makeup,” she muttered, but he grabbed her hand.

“Ah. Your eyes…” her breath caught as he trapped her gaze with his. “Are beautiful. The makeup brings them out even more. And… uh… I, well.” He floundered, his eyes darting away and Shepard opened her mouth to say _something_ , maybe ‘thank you’ or ‘shut up’ but that’s when he saw the bruise on her chest.

“Wow. Did I do… that?” She grinned, feeling a flush rise higher on her cheeks. Was she _blushing_? There were evenly spaced punctures, with a bruise spreading from each to form a bloom of purple and black, as if he hadn’t bitten her so much as headbutted her. It was sort of spectacular. “That’s going to cause a few chirps.”

Chirps? Gods, he were _adorable._ “I’m a fighter. I get bruises all the time in the line of duty.”

“‘Line of duty,’ right. Any turian who sees that will know exactly how you got it.”

“Good thing Butler’s human. And his wife… is human, right?”

“Uh. He didn’t say. But, uh… Shepard?”

“Yeah?”

He smiled, hands rested on her shoulders and he leaned in, touching their foreheads together. The gesture made her feel dizzy, off balance. Signs of affection that wouldn’t immediately lead to sex? That was new. Alien.

"Hey," he breathed, she lifted her chin to turn it into a kiss, and he followed, and she felt a flood of warmth and neediness as his tongue brushed her bottom lip.

For long moments they just pressed close, lips locked, his cowl digging awkwardly into her softer body, but it was a familiar feeling that was not uncomfortable so much as it was just _him._ Their bodies were not made to fit together, and making them fit despite the awkwardness had become its own sort of turn-on, something that they spent time working on together. Their project. Their shared kink.

She started to kiss along the edge of his upper mouth plates sucking and biting gently until she felt his tongue again, thick and raspy ask for entry… and then...there it was. The sex, the urge to be naked and squirming beneath him. Vakarian must have felt it too because her feet were off the ground with the force of his embrace, and he took a few steps until she was up against something-- the side of a building, a support beam, it didn’t matter-- and his hand was under her ass, boosting her up so they could renew and deepen the kiss. His tongue wrapped around hers-- she leaned in, hands finding the spot on the back of his neck that felt like suede, and she dug the tips of her fingers in, just the way to make him growl into her mouth.

“Get a room!” For the first time Shepard noticed whistles and hollers from appreciative lips. Someone was shooting at them, someone was swearing, angry.

“Xenophile slut!”

“I’m next!” That voice was dual flanged, like a turian’s.

Vakarian growled and flinched, brow plates drawing downward as he pulled away from her lips, but Shepard put a hand on his cheek to keep him close and shook her head slightly.

“We’re drawing a lot of attention,” he murmured, leaning his brow into her own before pulling away. He did a scan, ever conscious that Omega was never safe, especially when you were a interspecies couple out for a public dry-hump. He pressed his forehead to hers again, sighing.

She was feet six inches off the ground and slowly slid down the length of his front, back to solid ground, feeling more dizy than when she’d left it.

“Doesn’t the kissing usually happen after dinner?” she breathed. Kissing in public. That was new. That was… date-worthy. She liked it enough to almost forget that they were garnering some stares.

He found her hand and took it, possessive. “I have no idea,” he said. “I’m just kind of making things up as I go.” 

"I always did like improve."

A couple of people were stopped to gape, but as soon as they saw six and a half feet of angry turian leading a tall and hard eyed human woman with sidearm, they backed off, though she caught a few choice slurs aimed at their retreating backs.

“Do they bother you? The slurs?” Shepard laughed. “I’ve heard worse,” she said, giving him a bump with her shoulder. He hummed, thoughtful, but his eyes were narrow as if he had more to say. Later. They could talk later. They had to act all normal for Butler and his family, first.

Vakarian let go of her hand as they reached the address they’d been given, and knocked.

“Shepard, Arch! Come in!” Butler opened the door as soon as they knocked, and ushered them into a small apartment.

“I’ll be out in a moment!” A woman’s voice drifted from beyond another door even as a teenage girl burst into the room.

“Mom says dinner's almost ready, and…” She stopped dead when she saw that they had company. Or maybe when she saw who the company was. Shepard felt distinctly scary in a domestic setting. Neither she nor Vakarian were what she might call “family friendly,” and she suddenly wished she’d worn a shirt that didn’t leave her shoulders exposed in order to cover up the bite on her chest and that she’d actually concealed her side-arm.

It was more than that, though. Shepard couldn’t hide the way she moved like a predator, or the poorly hidden wariness as she assessed every corner of the room for potential threats, nor the sidearm she kept at her hip. She couldn’t hide that she was a killer, who was ready to ply her trade at any moment, any more than Vakarian could hide that he was a towering avian alien with talons, teeth, and his own undisguisable air of intimidation.

“Neff, this is Vakarian, and Shepard.”

Neff continued to stare. Her eyes were dark brown and soft like Butler’s and they danced between Shepard and Vakarian.

“Hey,” Shepard said with a tentative smile, and Vakarian nodded to the girl.

Neff muttered a hello and scamped back the way she came. When Shepard glanced at Butler, he was smiling in a way that made Shepard’s heart ache. Why was Butler putting his life on the line with Archangel when he had a daughter at home?

“She’s shy,” Butler said with a shake of his head, his voice laden with affection. “Amazing artist, our Neff. She’s something.”

Shepard’s eyes scanned the room. The house was small and cluttered with life ongoing, but the walls were decorated with melancholy paintings in cool tones with spots of bright color, looking out of place in the shabby prefab.

“She did these?”

Shepard leaned in to examine the closest one, an asari’s face bleeding into a silver background studded with twisting black lines that reminded Shepard of neurons. The asari’s eyes were solid black, with the vague shape of a figure reflected back at the viewer. It was beautiful, and vaguely disturbing.

“Mmmm. That’s a friend of hers.”

“Lovely,” Shepard murmured. From the care taken by the artist, the indulgent brush strokes that defined the the asari’s face, and those blackened eyes, Shepard thought that perhaps the subject was rather more than a friend, but she didn’t say anything. Parenting was not a skillset she claimed to possess.

Vakarian studied the room as well-- neither of them could help their tactical natures it seemed, but she felt his eyes on her again as she moved to the next painting, an abstract that made her scratch her head as she pondered the writing shapes.

Aria would have loved to get her hands on someone like Neff. Shepard shuddered a bit at the thought.

“It smells amazing.” Garrus said, and he sounded warm, grateful. He made a circuit of the room, looking quite at home, and Shepard felt a pang of… something. Envy? Awe, perhaps, that it was so easy for him to walk into someone’s home and feel safe, and welcome.

It _did_ smell good, though. The air was full of something zesty, mixed with something earthy. It was hard to define and Shepard realized that it was because there was a combination of levo and dextro smells wafting around the tiny apartment. Apparently the levo food was lasagna, which she’d had maybe once ever, and was pretty sure it would lack cheese, which was hard to get on Omega. Sadly, cheese was the only redeeming feature of the noodle dish with heavy red sauce. Shepard had always been more a fan of asari cuisine, though she’d eat anything Butler and his wife made, and with a smile, just because it was Butler.

Butler ushered them over to a table, set with mismatched tableware, and offered them drinks. Shepard sat at the edge of her chair, stealing a glance at Vakarian. He looked relaxed, and shot her a mandible flick of a smile as he settled into the chair.

“So, this is…”

“Weird?” Butler intercepted her. “Why is it weird?”

“I was going to say ‘nice,’ actually. But, weird also works. It’s just… context, you know? Usually you’re the one serving up the medigel and the pep talks… and not the pasta _._ ”

“Are you kidding? I feed you idiots all the time! Now you’re on my turf. And, I _promise_ knowing where I live isn’t going to change that. I’ll still patch you up when you do something brave and stupid.”

Shepard felt Garrus stir by her side, and she had a sudden urge to touch him, be in contact.

A woman peered out from around the kitchen door, her black hair doing it’s best to escape the confines of a bun, and squinted at her guests.

“So sorry for the delay.! I’m Nalah.” She beamed at each of them in turn. “Dinner will be ready in a few minutes… I’d be out to socialize, but this dextro food is so fussy I can’t really leave it.”

Vakarian jumped up, and was halfway to the kitchen when Nalah shook her head. “Please sit! I--” “It’s no trouble. Least I can do,” and he sounded so earnest Shepard ducked her head to hide a smile.

Nalah relented, but her gaze slipped back to Shepard before she ducked into the kitchen with a turian in tow.

Shepard and Butler sat in silence for a moment, and Butler took a deep breath and words tumbled out before Shepard could attempt more small talk. “I wanted you both to see this. My family. Where I come from. Why I fight.”

Shepard studied the wine in her glass before looking up at her host. His brown eyes were lit with a fire that she knew drove him every waking moment. “I know,” she said, just as soft.

“ _This_ is Omega, Shepard. Not that bullshit out there. Omega is a nurse, and his amazing wife who’s given _every day_ of her life to others. It’s their daughter, who paints the world the way she wants to see it. It’s you, and Vakarian. Weaver, and Sensat. Hell, even Sidonis and Krul. _We_ are Omega.”

“I know,” she said again, but her mind rebelled. There was another epithet that ran through her mind, one purred out from indigo lips by someone who didn’t care about all… _this._ “I get it, Butler, I really do. I just… it’s not so simple for me.”

Butler nodded. “And we all know that. Whatever it is you're carrying around, Shepard, don’t you think it would be a little easier if others helped you shoulder the burden? I can think of about a half dozen people who are on your side… and a very scary turian who’s on the top of that list.”

Shepard’s mouth dropped open to reply, to defect, anything, but Vakarian chose that moment to walk in with potholders on his talons, clutching a big steaming dish brimming with what Shepard could only assume with lasagna.

He grinned up at her, looking somehow boyish, and Butler’s words echoed in her mind. _Very scary turian_ indeed. He couldn’t look more happy and domestic if he’d been wearing an apron. The corners of her mouth tugged up. He looked so at home here, different species or not, regardless of how much space he filled with his bulk and his height in the tiny living room made for humans as he navigated the furniture with a steaming casserole dish.

She had a sudden image of him purring over her while she dozed in bed, both of them drenched in morning light and _content_ , free of outside pressures and dangers, asking her what she wanted for breakfast and they weren’t at Butler’s hose, or Base, but somewhere far, far away from Omega, and she could hear the ocean and smell salt on the air and…

Wow. Oh. Oh no. It was too weird, seeing him like this.

“What'cha got there?” She said, for something to say. He was looking at her, leaning on the edge of the table with a funny, half quirked smile as if he wanted to say something himself.

“Lasagna, apparently,” he said. “Human food is weird. You mix it all together and call it a ‘dish’? Turians just call their food by name. Dead animal names, mostly.”

“That’s because turians mostly lack imagination.” He trilled in protest but a golden crust on the casserole caught her attention. “Oh my gods, Is that… cheese?” Shepard peered at the dish, and felt her stomach groan in anticipation. It had been a while since she’d felt hunger, but this… this she could eat.

Butler just smiled.

Cheese, chocolate… Shepard was starting to think Butler had black market food connections on Omega that she didn’t have any clue about. She was going to have to pry.

Nalah came in soon after bearing more dishes, and Vakarian purred in appreciation at the array of oily meat on one of the plates.

“This looks wonderful. Thank you,” he said, and Shepard nodded.

She had some questions, though. Namely about her sources. “Where did you get _cheese_?”

Nalah gave her a tight mouthed grin, mischievous. “I’d tell you, but then I’d have to kill you,” she said. Butler laughed, and she shot him a sweet little smile.

“Where’s Neff?”

Butler shrugged, and Nalah tilted her head to listen for something, and then she hollered: “Neff, sweetie, come eat!”

There was a pause, and then something heavy fell from a room beyond. Nalah made a face, her nose scrunching as she strained to listen for more disasters. “Neff?”

“Sorry mom! Be right out!”

Butler began to dish out food, and encouraged them not to wait. Shepard tried to think of something to say to this woman whose husband they put in the line of fire every day. Should she thank her? Should she apologize?

Vakarian was making pleased noises that bordered on obscene to her ears, and she shoot him a look. He had his eyes closed, chewing on a strip of that greasy meat.

“This is incredible,” he said once he’d swallowed. “I haven’t had _reikk_ steak since…” he paused, and his mandibles twitched. She wondered what meal he was thinking of, what past he wouldn’t speak of. “Well, it’s been a while.”

Shepard took a bite of her own meal, and it was her turn to make a noise of appreciation. _Cheese._ Gods, she loved cheese.

“Thank you both for coming,” Nalah said. “It’s good to put names and faces to the people Lou works with…” Shepard caught a hint of steel flash in her eyes, but her brain was caught on Butler’s first name.

Lou Butler. She wondered if it was short for Louis. How little they knew about each other, not even first names… but here she felt something open up, lossent a little between them. It was weird.

“Doctor Solus has been good to us, but this whole crime fighting business is… it’s a bit stressful for us. I want to know my husband is being looked after, and the two of you seem… well, it’s good to meet you both.”

Vakarian hummed, Butler coughed, and Shepard could feel his embarrassment.

“It’s been an honor to work with Butler… with Lou,” Vakarian said. “Sorry, that’s so weird.” Butler barked a laugh, and took a bite of lasagna. “So, you know the Professor? What do you do for a living, Nalah?”

“A bit of this and that. I work down in Gozu, mostly, helping kids find better options than crime or selling themselves into slavery. I’m probably the closest thing to a social worker Omega has.”

The hair on the back of Shepard’s neck stood up. Nalah must work down in the wayhouses, places Shepherd used to frequent in her misspent youth. The hair continued to rise as Nalah turned her gaze to Shepard, studying her. Shepard tried to seem impassive and not to squirm as she met the full force of Nalah Butler’s gaze. She studied Shepard as if she was puzzling, brows drawn down to create a little furrow between her brows. “You know, you seem really familiar to me,” Nalah said after a long moment.

Shepard froze mid bite. “I’ve been around a fair bit,” she said her words sounded wooden and clumsy as her mouth went numb.

“I can’t quite place it…” Nalah’s eyes narrowed and Shepard actually squirmed under the scrutiny, fingers convulsing around her fork as she stole a glance at Vakarian, who seemed not to notice-- he was talking to Butler about his visor.

“Ah,” Shepard couldn’t stop the nervous laugh that bubbled out. “Ha, well, your face doesn't ring a bell. You know how big this station is-- and us humans all look alike anyway. Right Vakarian?” Vakarian and Butler had stopped talking and were now looking towards the two women. Garrus looked surprised, perhaps wondering what could make the unflappable Shepard nervous.

“Actually, Shepard, humans are pretty easily distinguishable by hair color and skin tone alone…”

Did he always have to be such a literal dork? Yes, yes he did, and in the moment it was not helping.

Nalah was staring off into space. “Nym…” The sound of her first name spoken from a stranger’s lips made Shepard’s heart go cold. “That’s it! You’re Aria’s girl!” Her tone was all wrong though, not accusatory, but almost delighted that she’d solved a tricky puzzle. Why wasn’t she screaming at her? “That’s where I know you from. You were Aniak’s charge-- Aria’s ward! Nym Shepard… Aniak used to talk about how much trouble you were with the biotics and...”

Shepard stood up so fast the chair flew backwards.

She was shaking, she realized, clasping and unclasping her hands in a helpless gesture as she backed towards the door of that cozy, shabby little apartment where her whole life came undone. There was nothing to hold on to, nothing to save her now that the truth shone down on her like a cruel spotlight. She couldn’t see outside of the pool of blinding light that now illuminated where she stood, bare and terrified, her breaths coming more shallow like air wasn’t what her lungs wanted, and she’d be drowning in a moment. Iron control, carefully cultivated for so many years, was gone.

She stole a look at Vakarian, and wished she hadn’t. His mandibles were flared, mouth slack so she could see his teeth, and he looked…. horrified. As well he should be.

She felt a surge of energy burn through her nerves, and blue sparks danced across her skin.

“Shepard… Is that true?” His voice was so quiet it was more a rumble. Her biotics flared, and a dish shattered. From the corner of her eye she saw Butler flinch. She should lie,make a joke, smooth ruffled feathers and redirect. Or...tell the truth. 

“I--” her voice sounded harsh, almost cruel. “I should go.”

Then she ran.

Someone was shouting, several someones. She heard the words “please” and “I’m sorry,” and “wait,” and she heard her name, but she was out the door before she could hear any more. Vakarian followed, but he was too far behind, stunned to slowness by the revelation, and she knew too many of Gozu’s secrets. She heard him call for her-- he still called her Shepard and not Nym, not Aria’s girl, or liar or trator, but she still ran, ducking into an alley and down into the service catwalks before he could see which way she’d turned, and she was _gone._

Of all the things that could have outed her. It could have been Vakarian himself, and his insatiable curiosity, that detective’s instinct that urged him to pry. But he hadn’t pried, and it was probably the only thing that had kept her around: that feeling of safety with him, that he saw and valued her, and he didn’t care that she had secrets.

It could have been a squad mate that had outed her. Sensat was suspicious enough. Perhaps an enemy, getting wind randomly that Aria’s girl was back, and was working for Archangel. It could have been a stranger, passing on the street. Arai’s girl. _Aria’s girl._

But it had been… Butler’s _wife_. Nalah. Just a random encounter with a sweet woman who had worked with Anika-- Shepard’s old caretaker, years ago. Shepard certainly didn’t remember her, but someone who worked with children in the wayhouses would be the sort of woman Butler, Saint Butler would marry, after all.

For fuck’s sake, Shepard had gone soft and domestic for one second, had for one _second_ entertained the idea of a relationship, of being normal, of pursuing something for no other reason then it made her fucking _happy-- Vakarian made her happy--_ So, of course, going on a _date_ with the most deadly fighter, with the biggest reputation on Omega had seemed like a good idea because he made her happy, and being happy had seemed like a good idea, and… of course it had ended like this.

And now he knew, not only about her deep and unasked for ties to Aria, but that she was a fucking liar as well.

She should have left Omega months ago. What was she even doing here, trying to make changes to a place that would kill her if she so much as thought about it. She was here for him, damn it, and now he knew who she was and what… what she was, and she hated all of it. She couldn’t face him.

She made her way to _Plain Jane_ on foot. Vakarian had the ignition codes for her shuttle, and never let a resource go to waste. He’d used it well, and she… she’d just have to live without it.

And without him.

The interior of the _PJ_ was blessedly quiet, and her panic gave way to a certain opioid numbness. Shepard did a quick inventory of her gear and supplies, feeling like she was floating in a vacuum. She always kept the ship stocked in case she needed to bug out, always prepared for moments like these, always had a go-bag with credit chits, fake IDs and biometrics, and the necessities of space travel prepared. She had a hardsuit and armor, guns, a change of clothes, and supplies to last her a week. She also had a bottle of ryncol.

She opened it as she did the pre-flight checks, took a swig, and set a course for the refueling stations of Imorkan, the best spot in the Omega Nebula to disappear completely.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *ugly crying*
> 
> Spoilers for this chapter: Blame my beta reader and my roommate for persuading me to go the maximum drama route of letting Nym get away. I have a deleted scene where Garrus catches her and basically have the sweetest love scene ever that will now never see the light of day! Hahah! Whoops! T____T


	17. Different Names

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I made myself sad.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning: There’s a little bit of body horror and one really mentally distressed Shepard in this chapter. People with sensitivities to mouth/tooth gore, and sensitivities to nervous breakdowns with self harm mention/implied, proceed with caution. 
> 
> I know this is getting really angsty and it’s gonna stay that way for the next two chapters, but the wheel of fortune will spin back around eventually.
> 
> If you didn’t know, Sheppers and Zaeed are ex lovers, nothing serious but they’ve known each other for 10 years. It gets a mention in [Aria's Girl](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5982328/chapters/14011993), if you’re curious. Also huge thank you to TheAmazingBlue_J for helping me get Zaeed's voice juuuuust right. I struggle with that ornery bastard.

_The coast disappeared when the sea drowned the sun_  
_And I knew no words to share with anyone_  
_The boundaries of language I quietly cursed_  
_And all the different names for the same thing_

“Different Names for the Same Thing” - Death Cab for Cutie

 

**Garrus**

Garrus was left stunned to slowness by the revelation Nalah had dropped on them, unsure of what he’d just heard and not sure if he believed it, but quickly realizing that if he didn’t move now she’d be gone.

So, he chased her. Of course he chased her-- how could he let her go? He chased her but despite chasing her she was just _gone_. It took less than sixty seconds-- he called her name, and she sprinted and then she whipped around a corner and then he took a skidding turn into the alley.

The alley was empty.

He called her name again. He said… he said “please.”

He scanned for heat signatures, life signs with his visor. Nothing but a varen, digging for scraps in a dumpster.

He said “please” again.

And he remembered the name Nalah had called her. Nym. Aria’s ward. “Aria’s girl.” It sounded like… a title. An appellative, or a perhaps a brand… an epithet.

The names danced in his head, felt like blooming poison that spread rapidly, clouding his judgment, making his mind and body sluggish with the tumult of it. He didn’t believe it. She wasn’t _Nym_ , she wasn’t Aria’s… girl. She was just… Shepard, and she was gone.

Garrus collapsed against a wall and his fringe scraped painfully against the corrugated metal behind him when he tilted his head up to stare into the narrow strip of orange-tinged darkness, He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He growled. He spun, and slammed his fist into the metal, felt the metal groan and dent, felt a sharp pain in his hand.

The pain was welcome, provided a rush of distraction.

Someone shouted for quiet.

He growled again, leaving a smear of blue on the metal as it started to swell.

_Shit. Absolute shit._

_Nym_. He couldn’t call her _that_. It sounded alien. Was that a name she still clung to, but kept secret from him? Or was it forsaken, a name she hand not heard spoken aloud in years?

He didn’t want to _know_.

No...no. He wanted to know. He just wanted her to be the one to tell him.

He’d wanted… Spirits, he wanted it to be her choice. This wasn’t how he’d wanted to… find her secrets.

It all made sense now. The little things added up: how she spoke about Aria, with loathing and reverence, how she knew little details, how she shied away from anything to do with family. Her affinity for asari cuisine, her proficiency with asari languages, the commando armor.

Spirits, she must have actual asari commando training.

There were so many stories there, Garrus was sure of it.

Garrus was also sure that he was making a lot of assumptions.

Spirits, what had _that_ been like? Raised by _Aria_.

He leaned against the wall for a long while, cradling one throbbing hand in in the other, and a familiar weight tamped down on him: restraint, of his hands being tied, of being trapped somewhere he didn’t want to be, with obligations that were starting to seem pointless, having feelings that were totally unbecoming of a “good” turian, of someone who wanted to serve, to have worth and merit, to be seen as worthy. He didn’t care about being worthy, or serving.

 _Selfish_. _Selfish, angry, hot headed. Obsessive._

It was what had brought him _here_ , to this particular hell called Omega. The place without Spirits, “the world without law.”

He shouldn’t be here. He never should have come here. Shepard had made that abundantly clear from the beginning; Omega was pointless, trying to change things here was pointless... but it went back further than that, it went back to Fisher, to the Normandy. He never should have left, should have died with his Commander.

But he hadn’t died, hadn’t been on the Normandy and he hadn’t…. done his duty, carried on Fisher’s fight like he should have, no matter the consequences. Fisher was the one person who stood against the Reapers, Fisher and his squad, and when Fisher had died, Garrus had done nothing.

He was a coward.

And now he had this mess on his hands. A squad he had created, whose safety he was totally responsible for, and he was entangled with a human who didn’t want entanglement, didn’t need his complications, couldn’t handle facing whatever it was she’d been confronted with… and he wasn’t going to force the issue. But he was trapped on Omega with this squad who relied on him, and it felt… wrong.

If he was being honest, it had felt wrong for a good long while.

A thousand scenarios raced through his head as Garrus pushed off the wall and stalked back to Butler’s house. He could cut and run as Sidonis had suggested. Break up the team. But maybe Shepard would calm down and come back, and find him gone. He could stay, and carry on with Archangel, push harder, dig in deeper. And what if Shepard never came back? What if he never saw her again? What if she was going to throw herself into danger and get killed because her judgment was clouded, or because that was just what she _did_.

He shook his head to clear it. He couldn’t make plans for Archangel based on what Shepard might do. She was too unpredictable, an outlier. He had to strategize for the best possible outcome for the most people possible based on his limited options.

He knocked on the Butlers’ door and it slid open with a hiss, and Butler-- Lou, and Nalah were in the livingroom, dinner abandoned.

So many names danced through his head. Different names, for the same people.

“Vakarian-- no sign?”

Garrus shook his head.

Butler stood and ushered Garrus into the living room. He took one look at the hand held limply by Garrus’ side and pressed him into a chair before getting out a medkit, tutting. Butler probably didn’t even realized he had made the noise-- it was an automatic response any decent nurse would have to such stupidity.

His knuckles were split, his middle finger fractured, and Garrus sat in silence as he got some medigel, a splint, and finally, a drink.

He had a difficult time not clenching the talons of his good hand around the glass hard enough to make it shatter. He took a sip instead-- Turian brandy, the good stuff. The stuff he’d drunk with Butler the other day when he’d gotten it into his head to ask Shepard over to this very apartment on a date. Fatal mistake, that date.

A thought he’d been avoiding finally surfaced, making him go still.

“What if she’s a spy?”

After a moment, Butler cleared his throat, looking troubled. “It’s not… beyond the realm of possibility but I don’t think she was, Vakarian. Spies… they like to blend in, integrate. Shepard is… well…”

“She’d make a terrible spy.”

He almost laughed, but huffed a sigh instead. He was being paranoid, he knew it, but he couldn’t rule out the thought. She could have been making reports to Aria, tracking Arcangel’s movements, keeping Omega’s queen abreast of Archangel's progress....

But she’d hated Aria. Hadn’t Shepard said she’d petitioned to get slaves out of Omega’s mines, and won? Hadn’t she...

But Shepard had also defended Aria… kept Garrus from making her a serious target. Aria was the lesser of two evils, was the iron fist that kept Omega from falling into true chaos…

Nalah took a deep, unsteady breath. “That was no the reaction of someone whose cover had been blown. She… panicked _._ And not because she was caught in a lie. That was… deeply rooted. Psychologically triggered.”

The look in Shepard’s eyes as her biotics flared had been one of terror. Garrus had been able to _smell_ it on her.

Nalah took another deep breath. “I’m so--” The corners of her mouth were tight, eyes overbright as she spoke. “I’m so sorry. I had no idea, didn’t think before…”

Garrus shook his head again, hard from side to side. “No. It’s… no one’s fault. She was always on the verge of running. If it wasn’t tonight, it was going to be tomorrow, or the next day. If it wasn’t this, it was going to be something else.”

He felt the truth of it as he spoke. It was inevitable, she was always leaving, always...

“What are you going to do?” Butler sat back on the couch with Nalah, an arm around her as she stared at the threadbare rug.

“Nothing.” Garrus took another sip, let the alcohol burn clarity into his chest. “I’ll check her home base, do some sweeps of her usual haunts, but… Butler, she’s gone. I know it. She’d been planning to leave for… at least a few weeks. Maybe longer.”

“You didn’t know, then?” Nalah looked up at him, studying him intently, and he shifted under the intelligence, the brightness of her gaze. He couldn’t help but think that Butler was a lucky man, to have a partner like that.

“I didn’t know. Shepard had her secrets… and I…”

He was so tired of secrets.

“I’m so... sorry. I don’t know anything about her, just her youth here on Omega, how Aria funded these… lessons, things with biotics, and Anika, my friend, she-- she said--”

Garrus struggled not to crush the glass in his fist, and his subvocals raked the space between him and the humans. “I don’t want to know anything more… please.”

Nalah’s breath hitched and Butler’s arm tightened around her.

“I was waiting for her to…” Garrus’ words faltered, he felt the void in his chest grow a little sharper. He’d wanted…. to what? Open up to him? Spill her guts? Had he really been so naive as to think they would share some profound moment of heart-wrenching openness, some special vulnerability between them that wasn’t forced into existence by disaster or mayhem? She had done nothing but show him, literally tell him over and over again that she was ready to bolt if things got too close.

Shepard was nothing if not always ready to run.

Well, now he knew why.

Besides, he actually knew more about her than she knew about him. She’d done anti slavery work. Been some sort of freelancer in the Traverse. She had some kind of reputation that Monteague knew about. She had been friends with Nihlus Kryik.

She was _someone_ , clearly.

Well, he was someone too. If he hadn’t told her _a thing_ about himself _,_ how could he have expected her to open up to him?

He should have told her. Told her… what, exactly?

He knew exactly what… Damn it, but he wanted to tell her his name. It was a primal urge, to say “Garrus,” to her, make her say “Garrus” back, as if naming each other could make whatever it was between them real, like some mystical alchemy the old religions practiced, when naming Spirits could make them manifest, and empower the namer.

He wanted to be Garrus to her. He knew her name, or the name she had used as a child, as… Aria’s ward. She should at least know his name.

It would only be fair.

“ _Hey Shepard, I’m Garrus Vakarian. Ex cop, you know about that. I was a detective actually. Bit of a troublemaker. Worked with Commander Fisher, yes, yes,_ the _Commander Fisher, to take down Saren. I help save the Citadel, when the fucking_ Reapers _attacked, and when Fisher died the Council claimed Sovereign was an isolated threat, and I couldn’t do anything from under all that red tape... and… I started to wonder if the galaxy was worth saving after all. So, I quit and made some plans, came to Omega and…._

_And I met you._

_And you weren’t part of my plan._

“You aren’t going after her?” Butler still sat with one arm around his wife, his free hand fidgeting with a loose thread on the couch.

Would he? Garrus thought about her… she obviously had some way on and off Omega, probably a small privately owned starship he knew nothing about-- and if she had ties to Aria, Shepard’s pockets probably ran deep. She didn’t need him.

She didn’t need him, but eleven other souls did.

Something solidified in his chest.

“No, I’m not.”

Nalah shifted and Butler made the sound of human scepticism in his throat as his eyes flicked up to watch Garrus. “Really?”

“She could be anywhere, and I don’t have the time or the resources to be chasing someone who doesn't want to be found.”

“Vakarian…”

The _thing_ in his chest dropped to his stomach and he stood abruptly, setting his glass down and fixing Butler with a stare. “I think we’ve had enough cross-examination of my personal life for one evening.”

It was unfair, and Garrus knew it, but he was angry and Butler was always pushing, trying to maneuver Garrus into some position or another when it came to Shepard and he was _done_.

Butler sighed, drooped his eyes. “Okay, but I think you’re making a mistake.”

“Enough.” Archangel was back in place, a sense of command he hadn't felt in years slipping into his voice. Silence followed.

“Vakarian… is there--”

Butler never called him Vakarian. He only called him Arch, or Boss, or Sir. It stung, hearing that name. In that moment he _hated_ that name, and what it represented, the weight of honor riding on those four syllables. It was too heavy for him.

“Garrus,” he said.

“What?” Butler watched him, wary.

“My name,” he said, voice soft. He towered above the Butlers, suddenly feeling huge and unwieldy in the small space made for humans. The thing in his stomach loosened. “Since we all seem to be exchanging names, my name is Garrus Vakarian.”

He was so tired of secrets.

~~~

Garrus told the Butlers everything. He sat on the couch, head in hands, his elbows braced on his knees, and he spoke to the floor, feeling the dead weight of the past two years slither out and writhe, outside of him for the first time since Fisher had died, since the funeral where he yelled at Liara for trying to comfort him, and Alenko stared at him as if he were a monster and Tali sobbed quietly and it broke his heart.

Garrus told them about how he had almost been a Spectre, but had withdrawn his candidacy to join Fisher. They’d hunted Saren, fought the Geth, visited Prothean ruins, met rachni and mind controlling plants, how they met Vigil, and eventually defeated Sovereign on the Citadel. He told them about the _noise_ Sovereign made, the _Naksea_ sounds that heralded the death of all Spirits and the end of the galaxy. He told them how they had won, but the war was still coming, and yet Fisher had encouraged him to go back to C-Sec and he hadn’t lobbied hard enough to stay on board the Normandy. How could he have? It was _Alliance,_ and back then, Garrus was still trying to be a good Turian. He’d been a fool.

Not being allowed to stay on the _Normandy_ hurt worse than Fisher dying: to be dropped off on the Citadel with no more than a handshake as Fisher sailed off on another assignment.

How that dismissal had saved his life, because...

Because... Fisher had died, shot down by Geth, though there were darker rumors, about the Council, about monsters called Collectors, about his own people, the Alliance. Cover ups and conspiracy. He didn’t believe any of it, but he didn’t try to parse it out.

Garrus told them how he’d given up, and run to the first place he could think of that would give him free range to point a gun and shoot.

Then came the hard part, the part he choked on. Butler and Nalah watched him, brows furrowed in concern as he sat up from his hunched position, eyes going icy and gut tinged with fear and rage.

“Sovereign was not the only Reaper. We spoke to it. It said… I’ll never forget, it said, ‘ _Our numbers will darken the sky of every world._ ’”

Butler didn’t say anything for a long time. Nalah swallowed, looking uncertain.

“So,” Butler said eventually. “What are you going to do about it?”

It felt like Butler had been asking him the same question all night.

_What are you going to do, Garrus?_

Garrus took his head from his hands, looked at the couple before him, thought of the young woman, the artist, hiding in her room away from the drama, and his mandibles twitched. He laughed.

If Shepard wouldn’t give him any grand gestures, Garrus would make his own. “Call a meeting with the squad. Mandatory.”

“Yes, sir,” Butler said softly, and Nalah leaned into his shoulder as the orange glow of an omni tool sprang to life on her husband’s wrist.

~~~

**Chat Transcript**

V 1904: Shepard?

V 2001: Shepard.

V 2117: Shepard.

V 2431: Spirits, Shepard, where the hell are you?

V 0120: Shepard, please, at least let me know… I don’t care... what if something were to happen? Does anyone know where you are?

V 0451: I don’t care what you think any of what happened means. I need you. I need you on every level, with my mind, my body, and… my heart. I need you on my team-- I need you for the fight that’s coming. I’m not going to look for you, because I know that’s not what you want, and would be a violation of your trust, but I’m asking you to...

 _Automated Message_  0503: _The Standardized Galactic Communications Network Address you have attempted to reach no longer exists. Please re-enter the SGCN address and try again._

~~~

Shepard’s absence was conspicuous, as always.

_She should be here._

_This was her idea._

_“Get someone to watch your back. Get several someones to watch your back.”_

Well, he’d taken her advice to heart, taken it to the furthest logical conclusion by finding extensions of himself, others who sought justice or revenge or redemption and united their causes. They watched each other’s backs, and patched up each other’s wounds and goaded each other to new heights. They were Archangel, and… they were a mistake.

Garrus saw it now. The reality of the situation stemmed from survivor’s guilt, a bad dream, and an empty heart, and he now had followers who depended on him. If he was going to salvage this mission, it was time to shift Archangel in a new direction. If all these people were really willing to die for the cause, it had better a cause worth dying for.

Garrus’ eyes hardened as he looked around at the squad, eleven strong. Ripper, Erash and Monteague sat together as always, exchanging glances. Mierin fidgeted, Sidonis leaned and Vortash paced a few steps before stilling. Weaver and Sensat came in last, whispering to each other, but they fell silent when the saw Garrus standing at the front of the room, simply watching.

He looked at each squad member in turn, not expecting, just waiting as they waited for their leader to speak. Garrus knew these fighters, knew them down to their essence. Butler, who always found the heart of things. Sidonis, who could see every side. Weaver, who just wanted to have a good time, and do some good while ze was at it. Sansat had her anger and her ambition to drive her. Melenis, quiet and observant always found the spirit of things. Ripper had his secrets, moved around the outside of the squad but somehow contained them, even scared them a little. Monteague brought calm competence and years of experience, doing exactly what was needed, when it was needed, without being told. Erash had his utterly krogan glee, his love of mayhem which united him with Mierin, and with Weaver too. The three of them loved to watch things explode. And Krul… Krul was a genius, and his quiet disdain for everyone… everyone except perhaps Shepard, kept him separate too.

But not as separate as Shepard. She’d never been a true part of the team. A consultant, an oracle, but never really _his._

Garrus took a breath, and Butler caught his eye for the briefest of moments before dropping his gaze to study broad palms, as if they contained mysteries.

“Thank you all for coming…”

_Stupid thing to say. Find the commander in you, Garrus. If Fisher could do it..._

“Things have changed in the past few days. Archangel is in the news, not just rumors. There are bounties on us, rewards for information. They don’t know who we are, just that we are a threat. They also think we’re all turian.”

Erash grumbled, “Typical turians, stealing all the credit,” which earned a few laughs, and a huff from Sidonis.

Sensat was shifting from foot to foot. “We press the advantage, right Vakarian?”

Garrus fixed her with a stare.

“We press the advantage,” he said after a moment. “For now. I am proud… incredibly proud of this squad.”

Weaver grinned.

“We’ve disrupted entire arms dealing rings. We’ve freed and re-located slaves-- over a hundred slaves destined for implants, for the mines… for worse. We’ve decimated the red sand trade on this station. We have the Blue Suns and the Blood Pack leaders running scared, jumping at shadows.” He planted his feet and crossed his hands behind his back.

Ripper’s cybernetics blinked slowly at him.

“And we could press the advantage, wipe out each merc group, each new monster that shows up on Omega. We could do that forever.”

Erash smashed one massive hand into an equally massive fist, nodding.

“Or we could go for Aria.” That was Monteague, lounging near Melenis and Erash. There was a murmur of assent from others in the crowed, including Ripper. Sidonis was in the back, simply watching. His wounds were healing, but Garrus could sense a tightness about him, the way he moved touched with pain.

“We could go for Aria. But I don’t think we’re prepared for the consequences of winning that war.”

Weaver shook hir head, mouth twisted in connection. “Without Arai in charge, this station would fall into worse hands in less than a day. Any semblance of order that exists on this station comes from Aria. Omega needs her.”

“That’s some apologist bullshit right there,” Monteague countered, looking disgusted. “I generally don’t go in for the lesser of two evils.”

“So you’ll stick around and face the consequences? I’d rather work with a known quantity of despot than the unknown legion of scum that would descend on this station and rip it apart once Aria’s gone.”

It seemed that Weaver was firmly in Shepard’s camp when it came to Omega and Aria. Known quantities of evil were better than the unknown hordes that were lying in wait for an opportunity to take Omega should Aria fall. Weaver-- and Shepard, were right.

“Anything’s better than that asari w--”

“Enough,” Garrus said, his voice low and venom tinged. The two humans stopped arguing and their heads snapped back around to stare at him. “I’ve done the analysis. There is no way we’re capable of touching Aria, not not without another couple dozen commandos and maybe an entire infantry. Taking on Aria means starting a war.” Spirits, but his heart _wanted_ that war. He didn’t like the way Aria did things, didn’t understand her connection to Shepard, and he hated that his head agreed with Weaver. Without Aria this station would fall into worse hands, fracture and fragment into factions and feuds, the eezo uncontrolled, tainted and possibly falling back into slave labor, something Shepard had worked hard to eradicate…

_Don’t think about Shepard. This isn’t about Shepard._

He held the silence for a moment, letting his word, which was final, sink in.

No Aria.

“Taking on Aria is not the war I want to fight.” he began again, and his subharmonics flanged with tension, making all but the humans in the room lean forward. Melenis was smiling sadly at him, immediately sensing the tension in him, the division. Spirits, humans were so tone deaf. “I don’t want to fight Aria, because there’s another war coming. Something bigger than Aria, bigger than Omega.” Garrus saw Sidonis raise his brow plates at the mention of another war, mandibles going slack and fringe rising slightly.

“We have some business to wrap up here, with the Blue Suns. I want Tarak dead within the week. I want the new Eclipse systems hacked so we can start feeding them false information again.” He glanced at Krul, who was studiously ignoring him, staring at something on his omnitool, though Garrus knew he was listening. “We’ve got our work cut out for us, but it’s short term work. Long term, there’s a bigger picture that I haven’t bothered to look at in a long time, but I can’t ignore any more.”

He paused, to test for dissent, for rebellion, but none came, just the unease that came from a leader changing course, changing the script.

“What are you trying to tell us, Archangel?” said Melenis. She was so soft spoken, but her words carried, and the rest of the squad stilled their fighting and their mumbling.

“I was there, almost two years ago. On the Citadel, when Saren and the geth attacked. Except it wasn’t the geth, and it wasn’t Saren. They were tools, wielded by an AI. A huge ship, older than the Citadel, older than the relays…”

He heard the sound of _Naksea_ in his bones, felt like he was there in the orange light and lavender smoke of the destroyed Presidium, and he shuddered. PTSD, Nalah had called it last night. PTSD caused those flashbacks, disturbing dreams. That’s what she said Shepard had probably experienced when she’d been… been outed as… “Aria’s girl.” Triggered. Many soldiers of many different species had it after the wars, after combat-- asari, turian, human… Nalah even had a theory that the krogan experienced a sort of collective form of PTSD based on the intergenerational trauma caused by the Genophage…

He was getting distracted, didn’t want to say what he was about to say.

“But what I’m talking about… what I’ve been… been running from for the past two years… that AI I mentioned, that attacked the Citadel? It was not a Geth construct. It was not the ship belonging to a rogue Specter. That AI was a Reaper. And it was not the only one.”

 _We are legion. The time of_ o _ur return is coming. Our numbers will darken the sky of every world._

There was silence. No one laughed. Only Melenis, Butler, and Sidonis stared at him. The others stared at their hands, or the floor, or exchanged looks.

“I’m not asking any of you to quit this fight. I’m not asking any of you to join a different fight than what you signed up for. I’m just telling you this: There will be a war. I don’t know when. Within months, or years, or hundreds. The galaxy won’t be ready. Council space, the Hierarchy, the Alliance. The Union, the clans…” Erash laughed at that and Garrus paused, waiting for the krogan’s chuckle to die out before he continued. “None of them will be ready. But when this war comes, I intend to be, and I’ll need as many soldiers as I can get fighting by my side. This is just the start.”

There was silence, and then a sudden uproar as half a dozen voices clamored at once.

Sensat stood up, and waited until the clamor died down. “I joined this fight because I fucking hate what mercs do to this sector. Vakarian’s been solid, hasn’t steered us wrong, even when we-- when I’ve pushed him.” She turned to Garrus. “The mercs will always be there, but if you think something bigger is coming... I’m with you. If there’s a bigger fight, I want in.”

Weaver ginned. Weaver always grinned, always said yes. “And honestly, what would you do without the brains of the operation?”

Garrus nodded, and felt an immense sadness which settled in his expression as he looked at the pair. That was two. He hadn’t expected any.

Melenis spoke next. “I am always with you, Archangel. You and Shepard.”

His gut twisted. There was no Shepard here. She didn’t know anything about the Reapers, anything about what he might be getting his squad embroiled in…

But she would. She’d come back. He’d find her again. What was that expression humans used? Bad penny. Small, out of use currency. Bright, copper, shiny. Like Shepard.

Monteague finished whispering with Erash shook her head. “Reapers. Mercs. Aria. What the hell. Take us to the fight, Arch.”

No one else spoke. Butler was not in on this, not ever. He’d told Garrus as much last night. His life was on Omega, with his wife and his daughter. It was for the best that Archangel released its hold on Butler so he could return to the safety of obscurity.

Garrus couldn’t help but look at Sidonis, whose eyes shone with something like hunger, though he remained silent. Hadn’t he suggested this very thing, that they move on, cash out?

Taking on a bigger fight was _probably_ not what he had in mind.

“I will give everyone a week to think on what I’ve said. I will answer your questions, and in the meantime we’ll take out Tarak for good. Anyone who wants out, we’ll cut your share and we can help you disappear. Anyone who wants in, your credit share goes towards funding the mission, plus pay. I’ll be in the back office if anyone wants to speak to me privately. Dismissed.”

There was another uproar as half a dozen voices started talking all at once, and Garrus turned to go. He was almost to the office door when a three fingered hand grabbed his arm, hard. Vortash had hold of him, looking urgent.

“Sir? I know who you are, now,” he said, green eyes bright. “Garrus, right? Garrus Vakarian?”

The past year of protecting his identity was hard to undo and a bit of terror thrilled through him. He felt a sudden stab of empathy for Shepard-- had she lived her entire life this way, worried someone would uncover the truth of her past and expose her? The difference was, Garrus had exposed himself by choice, because there was power in it.

Shepard could have made that choice to tell him, but she hadn’t and that power had been taken away from her. He wanted to give it back.

That urge was still there… he wanted to tell Shepard his name. It hurt almost physically, how badly he wanted to give her his name. His first name. His real name. He had this fantasy running through his head when it wasn’t filled with work, of tracking her down across the galaxy, looking everywhere, finding her and dropping to his knees and telling her… he wasn’t Vakarian. That was a family name. That name was huge and meaningless to him. He was Garrus.

The words were easier to say than he thought they would be.

“I am Garrus Vakarian, yes.”

Vortash had a softness around his shoulders that Garrus had never seen before. “You know, I always vaguely wondered what a Vakarian was doing out the the Terminus. Just assumed you had your reasons, like we all do. I’m from Palaven myself.” Delicate brown lines adorned his mandibles. “Clan Krenea was never as well connected as the Vakarians of course. Never put it together… news reports said Garrus Vakarian disappeared.”

“Well, here I am.”

“I won’t-- I won’t tell anyone, sir. I mean, I think half those idiots out there already kind of figured it out, but… You can count on us. For anything.”

“Good man,” Garrus said with a nod, a flick of his mandible and suddenly Vortash looked embarrassed.

“T-thank you, sir.” He sketched a Hierarchy salute, hand curled with knuckles to his crest, and Garrus replied with a superior officer’s stance, raising his head so his fringe spread slightly, and he placed a hand to his heart.

~~~

 

**Shepard**

Shepard threw a punch, but the skull she’d been aiming for did not connect with her fist. Instead, she overbalanced and fell, spinning shoulder first into the ground with a smack. That was going to hurt in the morning. She should probably be wearing armor, and not that stupid white shirt, now grayish and stained that showed off her shoulders.

The merc who’s face she’d been aiming for barreled down on her, aiming a vicious kick to her head. Stars bloomed and Shepard felt a tooth crack, but there was no pain, at least not yet. Ryncol was a hell of an anaesthetic, and she was thirty six local hours into a bender, wasted because her busted amp wasn’t speeding up her metabolism. Well, she’d always resented her inability to get truly shitfaced…

The merc wound up to kick her again but Shepard grabbed the leg still attached to the ground and yanked it forward so the merc slammed to the floor with a crack of armor on cement, and perhaps skull as well. Shepard jumped on him in a second, one hand on his throat, the other a fist which brutalized his face by slamming into it over and over again.

“You-- don’t-- touch-- a girl---” crack, his head hit the floor again. “Without-- permission.” She felt something snap in her finger on the last punch. “Again.”

The fucker had it coming. She should have just shot him and saved herself a molar and a broken finger, except the ryncol pumping through her veins demanded blood and fists, and not the simple pull of a trigger.

It really wasn’t a fair fight, even as drunk as she was, even though she wasn’t wearing any armor.

Still, she was going to need to see a dentist.

She felt a fist on her shoulder as she slammed her now unconscious victim’s head into the floor once last time and spat blood and tooth fragments across his face before spinning to face her next target. At this point, anyone who lay a single finger on her was a fucking dead man, just like this asshole she’d beat to a pulp. She snarled and crouched to lunge at this new attacker, someone who thought he could touch her and get away with it…

“Watch it!” She stared down the muzzle of a rifle, handled by a massive krogan. Fuck. “He better not be dead,” the Krogan growled.

“He better… ha-have insurance,” she slurred back, still keeping low. She spat again and a glob of blood and phlegm landing on the Krogan’s boot. The alien took a step forward, raising the butt of his rifle as if to strike her, but jerked to a stop when another voice called out.

“You bloody well don’t want to do that, krogan.” The voice was male, older, gravel in a blender, with an Earth-born accent she couldn't quite place, but struck her as intimately familiar. “I’ve seen her pop a bigger krogan than you’s eyes from their sockets from the shockwave alone.”

Shepard tried to find the source of the voice, squinting through the neon of the hole-in-the-bulkhead that tried to pass itself off as a bar. Her mouth tasted like bloody sawdust and death, and she rolled a glob of spit around, ready to hock it at whoever came at her next, but that voice seemed scarily familiar to her booze addled senses and… a face resolved itself in her blurred vision, a face of a human with a Y shaped scar across his cheek like a canyon and one milky blue eye.Tattoos twisted up his arms to culminate in the half crescent and circle on his neck-- the Blue Suns emblem.

The man the tattoo adorned was decidedly not Blue Suns, however. He wore yellow.

“You know this scum?” The Krogan growled.

“Goddamn right I do.”

“Then get her outta here. Now.”

“Masani?” The name came out a puzzled whine. She hadn’t seen that face in nigh on three years.

“Shepard. Been lookin’ for you. Never thought I’d see the great abolitionist licking the dirt with the scum here on Imorkan.”

“You’re on the wrong asteroid.”

“Last I heard from Mon--”

“Shut up, Masani!” She shoved at his shoulder and he twisted aside so she stumbled. Was he a fuckin idiot? She vaguely remembered that conversation she’d had with Monteague… they both knew Masani and he must on his way to looking for Archangel-- but that didn't mean he had to _talk_ about it.

“I’ll shut up if we can get outta here.”

“Fuck! Fine, fine! Let's go.”

“I see you back here and I kill you, girly,” the Krogan said to Shepard as she dragged herself away from the body on the blood-slick floor.

“Where you staying?” Zaeed dogged her, and she could smell the whisky and cigars on him.

“‘m not,” she mumbled through the blood. Her face hurt now, and she took a stumble at the threshold of the bar. Zaeed grabbed for her, but Shepard shrugged him off. “Can walk fine,” she muttered.

He stared at her, eyes raking her from head to toe and his gaze settled on her shoulder. She still wore the clothes she’d run from Omega in, her shoulders bare, turian-mouth shaped bite mark on full black and blue display.

“C’mon Shepard. Got some whisky back at my place that’ll take care of your ability to walk.”

“Good,” she cooed. “Excellent.” She tried to pat his cheek and he jerked away.

Masani brought her to a seedy motel room, which was just like him. And like her, too. They used to stay in a lot of seedy motel rooms together. They used to fuck in a lot of seedy motel rooms together. At least this one had a couch, and he didn’t make a move to touch her. If he’d tried, he would have ended up with broken teeth to match hers. Shepard had found that ex lovers sometimes held some funny notions about bodies and their entitlement to hers, but it seemed that Zaeed just wanted to get her out of public space as quickly as possible.

The door shut with a hiss and she immediately began to pace the room, looking for a bottle of the good stuff Masani always had on hand.

She heard a clink of glass and turned. The old merc had a bottle of brown liquor, indeed the good stuff. He handed her the bottle and she took a swing of the hot, bright bourbon, before collapsing onto the couch. He sank on the arm of the chair, keeping his distance.

“So, were you tryin’ to get yourself killed? And what the bloody hell are you _wearing?_ ” She could feel his eyes linger on the bruise that bloomed across her shoulder, below one sharp line of her collarbone.

Shepard looked down at her clothes, now worse for the wear and incredibly unlike something someone wears to a bar fight. More like something someone might wear on a date.

She hummed noncommittally and handed him the bottle, shifting in the spotlight of his scrutiny. She hated scrutiny.

“I ain’t seen you in a couple years, Shepard, but… this ain’t like you.”

“It’s very like me,” she said, wincing as her tooth twinged, shooting pain up through the roof of her mouth.

“Even just hearin’ you were on Omega ain't like you. You hate that goddamn rock.”

“I lost some people.” _One person._ “Omega was my best option.” _Only option._

“That’s life Shepard. Never got to you before.” She stared at the wall. “Some interesting things happening on Omega these days, though. This Archangel chap… what’s he like?”

Shepard laughed, a short bark that sounded bitter even to her own ears. “He’s a goddamn maniac,” she said, echoing Zaeed’s manner of speech.

“I was headin’ to Omega to find you and Monteague, after resupplying. I’m interested in anyone who’s taken such a big bite out of them Blue Suns assholes.”

“He’s a turian,” she said, and her gut went sour. “Most honorable asshole I’ve ever met. Scary fucker too, when he's pissed. Funny, when he's not.”

Zaeed nodded. “So, you ready to head out after you sleep this shit off, or what? I’m already behind schedule.”

Shepard laughed again, and she felt the shame burn her cheeks. She’d run away, a petulant child, leaving Vakarian cold.

He must be so angry with her.

“I’m not coming. I have shit to do.” She reached for the bottle. “Gimme that. I’m gonna pull this tooth.”

“Jesus fucking christ, Shepard.”

Shepard rose and took a step so they stood toe to toe, and leaned in close. To his credit, Masani didn’t flinch away, even as her blood stained mouth came within an inch of his nose. “What’s the matter Masani? I thought you liked a woman who could handle a little pain.” She saw the knot of his throat bob and the corner of his mouth twist.

“You--” he started, but she tutted at him and her hand snaked out and jerked the bottle from his hands before spinning on her heel and stalking to the bathroom. There, she hunted blearily for a med kit, muttering to herself as Zaeed peered around the door.

“To your left,” he said.

Her hand brushed the medkit and moments later its contents went scattering across the counter as she found the forceps, medigel and gauze.

“Shepard…”

“One sec,” she said, her tongue probing the broken molar next to her upper canine. She slammed back another mouthful of whisky, swishing it around and letting the burn cleanse her mouth, and then gripped the tooth with the forceps and gave an experimental tug. Nothing shifted, so she adjusted the grip of the forceps, took a deep breath and _pulled._

The tooth gave a funny little pop, followed by a wave of bright agony through her upper jaw, accompanied by a jolt of adrenaline.

“Mother _fucker,”_ Shepard managed around the blood, and the tooth clattered into the sink, scattering blood drops that turned to rivulets on the chrome.

The blood tasted like copper and she closed her eyes and leaned into the sensation, submitting to the trance of pain in order to overcome it. It was a familiar routine, one she had practiced time and again since she was old enough to learn that pain was part of her life, and accepting it made it much easier to tolerate. The booze helped too, though she'd never really had the option before. Once she came around through the pain, she found herself braced against the sink, shaking slightly, her elbows locked.

She sucked on the blood in her mouth and after another bleary moment of consideration, took another pull of liquor, leaving a smear of red around the neck of the bottle as the alcohol burned the new hole in her mouth.

“You’re gettin blood in the goddamn bourbon,” Zaeed said, and he pulled the bottle from her grasp.

“Heeeeey,” she said, and leaned over to try and reclaim the bottle, but Zaeed held it behind his back.

“Better see to that tooth now,” he said.

“Okay _dad,_ ” she slurred, and he shot her a disgusted look.

“So the truth finally comes out,” Zaeed said, leaning against the wall. “After all these years of fucking, and you’re just looking for a father figure?” If Shepard noticed the thin press of his mouth, the downward draw of his brow, she decided not to let it register.

“Yeah, you got me,” she said with a grin. “I just want you to take care of me. It’s my _thing_ now.”

“The layers of sarcasm and truth here are goddamn mind-bending, Shepard. Clean yourself up before I get sick of you and chuck you out on your ass.”

She shot him a blood filled smile before examining the gap in her teeth, just visible when she grinned. She packed the new hole in her mouth with medigel-soaked gauze, and soon the bleeding stemmed to more of a gentle seep and the pain became a dull ache in her jaw, easily forgettable.

Her sober mind, tucked away somewhere began to stir and struggle through the mess of ryncol, whisky, and pain flooding her system. Sobering up was inevitable, and when she did, she knew she would have to deal with whatever was going on, plus interest. But Shepard had never before been able to turn a bender into more than band-aid because of her biotics and she’d taken advantage of her current ability to get blind drunk and beat the shit out of people who deserved it. However drunk she was now, she imagined it was probably what normal people experienced when they drank, and it was weird for her to feel so ordinary. Her nervous system was fucked, and where she used to be able to down ryncol like water and feel no worse for the wear in the morning, she now felt the edges of a blackout coming on.

She didn’t want it to be over. Not for a moment. She didn’t want to sleep. Sleep meant she’d wake up with a proper hangover and a pile of shame and she just didn’t want either…

 _Gods,_ Vakarian must think… what? She had no way of knowing what he must think, because she’d been a coward and run away before she’d let herself find out.

“A petulant, selfish, desperate, terrified child.”

Oh. She’d just said that out loud, hadn’t she?

Masani stared at her with a raised eyebrow and she held up her hands. “What?” Her chin jutted in challenge, and the old merc made a disgusted noise and shook his head.

“Sleep it off, Shepard.” Zaeed stood like an old soldier before her, holding the line.

“Yeah, yeah.”

She couldn’t even ponder the weirdness of standing nose to nose with Masani after all these years. When she’d been younger, wilder, and he’d been less stable as well, there had been something there between them. Something not unimportant but certainly not precious, not anything that might whisper to her heart. They’d work the same job, kill some mercs, and then she’d go boss him around and appreciate the truly imaginative filth he would spew when they fucked.

Now they stared each other down, and instead of jumping him and trying to have a good lay to take her mind off things like she might have even a few years past, she went for the shower, stripping her soiled civs as she turned on the water, stumbling a bit over the heeled boots and the tight legs of her pants. The door remained open, but Zaeed left as she started to strip and she could hear him pacing the small motel room, not watching, but not quite leaving her alone.  When she got out of the shower she noticed that the sharps were missing from the scattering of medical supplies she’d spread over the counter.

~~~

Something pinged, no more than a little electronic buzz on her omnitool.

For a second she thought-- she hoped it might be Vakarian. But it wasn’t, couldn’t be. Not him. Not ever again. Not when she was Aria’s girl, slave to the very structures he waged his pointless war against, he would never. It also couldn’t be him because at some point during her bender, she’d deleted the comm address that he, and the rest of the squad had for her.

It was a stupid thing to have done, she knew, but she’d done it and it was for the best.

Which meant that the message had to be from her terminal on Omega.

Her head ached, the rycnol gone from her system but left a pounding hangover in its wake. Masani snored on the other side of the room, one arm flug over his eyes, the other dangling off the couch with the near empty bottle of bourbon clutched in his fist.

She groaned as she shifted, assessing the situation. Her mouth was a mess of swollen bruises, but the damage was mostly superficial. No concussion, just a raging headache from the booze, or lack thereof. Her tongue probed the raw gap in her teeth where she’d… oh, dear. Memory fizzed, black around the edges and then coalesced, tinged in pain. Yes, she’d wrenched out the shattered tooth with a pair of forceps last night. Brilliant. Why had she done something so stupid? She looked down her pillow to see it stained red-brown with blood.

Gross.

She was gross, sweating poison from the booze and smeared with blood. And… naked? Not quite. She wore an old white t-shirt which smelled like cigars and sweat, and… her broken finger was splinted, and packed with medigel, and didn’t hurt.

She glanced at Zaeed again, and her heart sank. Had she done something stupid last night? Had he done something so terrible as to take advantage of her in such a state?

She squinted into her memory. No… they hadn’t even touched platonically that she could remember, except when he’d splinted her finger after the shower. But first, he’d tossed her a shirt, eyes averted. It was a dirty shirt that smelled like _him_ , but it was _something._

Her relief was palpable. Not that she found Zaeed unappealing, of course. She was just so… fucked up, adding sex to the mix…? Not that it really mattered, because Vakarian was never going to talk to her again anyway, but she couldn’t help but feel relief that she’d escaped that little complication.

_Focus, Shepard._

She glanced at the holo on her wrist. The message used Cerberus encryption protocols. She ran a script, and text sprawled across the screen.

She squinted as the letters danced and tried to resolve themselves into actual words-- not encryption, but her eyes refusing to work properly due to hangover. God, she missed the mild immunity to alcohol that a functional biotic amp gave her.

It was a simple message, though it took a few attempts to get her eyes to focus before she could read it. Coordinates, some instructions, and no promises of aid.

_Freedom’s Progress. Collector attack as of seven local hours ago. Investigate empty colony and make report. Further instructions and operative contact to follow._

Cerberus was testing her, and she had no choice but to obey if she wanted to access their resources. So they wanted to see what she was capable of?

_Sit, roll over. Beg. Play dead._

That last one, at least, she could do.

_~~~_

 

**Garrus**

“Come on Kenn, you must know something. You know we’ll make it worth your while, right?”

Garrus and Sensat leaned against the Kenn’s Salvage counter, making a quarian very nervous.

“Listen, you got Harrot off my back so I’ll tell you what I can. There’s one ship that meets your specs, and it’s owned by the Talons.”

Garrus laughed. “The Talons don’t own ship's.” A group of batarians in blue and white armor passed, grumbling, and Garrus punched in an order of grenades-- not that he needed them, or even liked using the damn things, but it was nice to support the kid, and he needed to look busy.

Sensat continued to fix Kenn with a cold stare.

“They do now. The Suns have been majorly destabilized by this Archangel guy, and whatever territory Aria isn’t grabbing up, the Talons are snatching. They’re trying to get a smuggling operation off the ground, so yeah, they got some ships now. About as capable of flying one of them as a blind Vorcha, but yeah.”

“What’s it called?” Sensat asked. "I know someone in the Talons..." 

Garrus gave her a look, but she simply shrugged. "It's not what you think. Well, it is but..."

Kenn drummed his fingers on the counter while he thought, helmet twitching towards the hall before fixing on Sensat. “Something human sounding… the Ver-- _Veritas_. That’s it. Older frigate, private sector built for colony support. Can land in atmo as far as I know. Needs a crew of five, minimum.”

Garrus loaded five times the amount the grenades were worth and passed the chit directly to Kenn, instead of paying via the kiosk.

“Come on, Sensat, I got what we came here for.” He stalked off into the bustle of the market, rubbing elbows with gangers and mercs and all manner of scum who would never see him coming, didn’t look twice at the the two tall, angry turians that made their way in a sea of hundreds of others. No one knew they were part of Archangel.

Garrus’ mandibles twitched as he heard a yelp of surprise from the quarian, but by then he and Sensat were swallowed up by the crowd. He didn’t think they’d be seeing Kenn again, not with the 1000 credits now lining his pockets. Poor kid could make his own way now.

“That’s the first time I’ve seen you smile in days, Vakarian,” Sensat said as they wandered the lower markets, pausing here and there to look at the kiosks and to make sure they weren’t being followed.

They needed have worried. Among the thousands that thronged the Gozu slums they stood out no more than any other hard eyed freelancers wearing plain, battered armor.

Garrus chuffed, shooting his squadmate a look. She stared back, bland and unconcerned. “You miss her?”

Garrus didn’t respond for a moment, schooling his subvocals into some semblance of control, though the edge of a whine seeped out. After that comm message… after she’d cut him out completely… did he still miss her?

“Of course. She’s an important member of the team. I’m worried about her.”

“You’re a terrible liar, Vakarian.” Sensat’s subharmonics flanged with annoyance. “You know that’s not what I’m talking about.”

Garrus fell into a stubborn silence. Letting his squadmates dig into his personal life was what had caused this mess in the first place....

Sensat’s voice grew soft, her harmonics rich and tinged with something that made Garrus’ heart stir, the tone that had been growing in his own voice over the past few weeks. “It hurts… doesn't it?”

He could have asked what Sensat was talking about, played dumb, but he knew _exactly_ what she meant.

It _hurt._

“You feel it too? With… Weaver?”

Sensat’s mandibles went in tight to her jaw. “I feel it. Not all the time. Weaver is… ze is amazing at trying to accommodate me... and my ‘turian stuff’ ze calls it.”

“‘Turian stuff,’” Garrus muttered. “Great.” They walked a little deeper into the markets, and Sensat stayed silent. She left him an opening, not pressing further, so it was his turn to ask what he needed to.

“Are you bonded to...”

“Yes. But Weaver can never reciprocate that bond.” Sensat spoke carefully, rich feeling of both happiness and sorrow infused in her subharmonics. It was strange to hear her sound anything but angry, or bored. “We’ve come close-- as close as we can to it. We spent a lot of time working on the psychology of it, the… unity and the… uh… dependance, Weaver calls it, required of a bond. It was hard for hir. I’m a soldier, not a scientist, but… when this thing happened with Weaver it… it blindsided me. I did a lot of reading, I’ve read everything I possibly could, which, let me tell you, isn’t much. Did some research about the differences in our nervous systems. Their limbic systems just aren’t capable of the physiological change required for a bond. Turian hormones literally _change_ our brain structures when we bond--”

“I _know_. _”_

“--and when we try to bond with…” Sensat fell suddenly silent as another Turian with a bare face strolled by, giving them both a once-over. Her voice dropped into a near whisper. “When you try to bond with a human, it’s just… void from them. Void and words and reactions. That’s how humans bond. With words. They make… _vows._ ”

“Humans are so… muted, in some ways. If she could just… hear it in my voice, I wouldn’t have to talk, or explain or…”

“That’s exactly it. They can’t _hear_. Can’t _smell._ Sound-dulled, nose-blind. But… I can hear it in you. Spirits, Vakarian, I can _smell it_ on you. You’re fucked. An absolute gonner for this woman, and if she were turian you’d have already have bonded or she would have refused you flat out. But she’s not. She doesn’t know a damn thing about what that feeling is you’re going through, she can’t hear you, or smell it on you, and she wasn’t fucking raised by turians so she damn well doesn’t know the significance of your-- your turian stuff, so you have to tell her. If you want this to work you’re going to have to learn how to _talk._ You can’t just growl and chirp your way through a relationship with a human.”

“I was going to. I was going to tell her…”

They turned off into a corridor, scattering a pack of garbage-picking vorcha.

“What happened?”

“She left. I… found out something about her she didn’t want me to know. Spirits, something _I_ didn’t want to know, and she left before I could stop her. Spirits, I’ve never seen someone lose a tail so fast as Shepard…”

Sensat was silent for a long moment, before she growled, deep and condescending in her subvocals. “I never trusted her. She smells like secrets.”

“It’s not what you think.”

“I can forgive your blind spot for her, but I won’t forgive her for exploiting it.” The feeling in Sensat’s subvocals stunned him. Her voice was infused with protectiveness, a kinship he hadn’t felt from another turian since… since before C-Sec and the Citadel, not since military service and halcyon days living in Cipritine, when he’d first left his parent’s guardianship. Back then… friends had been important to him. Now, they seemed a luxury.

And yet... would a subordinate given him insight into turian-human relationships so freely, and naturally?

Probably not.

They wove their way through access tunnel three, lapsing into silence.

Garrus paused at the shutter, putting in the access codes and waiting for the damn door to spring open. Vortash was having trouble decoding the delay protocol. “Is it worth it?” Not that it mattered… he couldn’t move forward thinking Shepard was going to come waltzing back with a smile, covered in bruises and telling tall tales just like last time… but he could _hope._

Of course he also knew that the moment he stopped hoping to see her again was the moment she’d show up, shining like a bad penny.

After a moment Sensat grinned, golden eyes hard and hungry. “Are you kidding? It’s totally worth it for me. For you, though? That depends Shepard’s got to think it’s worth it, too.”


	18. Project Phoenix

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Knock knock! Who's that? Plot! Lots of plot.
> 
> Still sad, tho.

_Then you would recall the deadly houses you grew up in_  
_Just because they knew your name_  
_Doesn't mean they know from where you came_  
_What a sad trick you thought that you had to play_

_“I don’t blame you” - Cat Power_

 

**Garrus**

It turned out that taking the _Veritas_ was easy when you had a handful of highly trained infiltrators, a shuttle with an eezo core, and a traitor.

Sensat didn’t like the word traitor, not really. She preferred the word “informant” or “ally,” and Weaver helpfully supplied and defined the human term “mole.”

Traitor was too strong a word, apparently.

Regardless of the terminology they settled on, it turned out that Sensat had a friend who was working for the Talons, which raised a few questions, but Sensat assured them that she was trustworthy, and trying to change the gang from within. This mysterious friend was more than happy to give over intel on a ship that was about to take its maiden smuggling voyage, hauling guns, mechs, and drugs out to slavers and wildcat colonies in exchange for immunity from Archangel’s operations for the next six months, by which time this “friend” should have a high enough standing in the gang that they might _actually_ become allies. If Archangel lived that long, at least. Apparently this Talons leader didn’t like that their gang was getting involved in smuggling, and approved of the squad’s good work in general.

Garrus would take what he could get. He’d had stranger bedfellows.

Garrus and Sidonis staked out the hangar that the _Veritas_ was docked at, in one of Omega’s lower wards. From there, they did recon and skimmed the networks until they found the wireless communications and patched Krul in to do his particular brand of damage.

They also obtained the _Veritas’_ manifest, detailing the ship’s ownership history so they could forge and eventually legitimize their commandeering of it. It wouldn’t be difficult: the original crew had been killed by pirates over five years ago, and the records of theft and trade were spotty. Besides, galactic laws favored those who currently had possession of contested materials. One of the few human C-Sec officers said it was the same on Earth, 9-10ths of the law or something arbitrary like that. Krul could get the _Veritas_ registered and properly owned by legitimate business man “John Deer” in less than a week, so port authorities wouldn’t flag the ship as a potential threat, though Garrus didn’t know why Weaver and Monteague found the fake human identity he’d set up so hilarious. John had been Commander Fisher’s first name, and wasn’t Deer the last name used for someone who didn’t have a verified identity in the Alliance military?

No one bothered to explain.

As ships went, the _Veritas_ was unremarkable, but Garrus saw potential in the frigate. It had standard FTL capabilities, a standard eezo core, standard size specifications… standard everything. It was actually an excellent ship for running contraband because it was just so spectacularly average. He would have prefered a ship of Turian make, with proper stealth capabilities but the _Veritas_ had no room for expansion, only modification of current capabilities. Namely it needed better guns, and an upgraded hull. It was small enough to be crewed by just five people, and fast enough to cross an average solar system in three days, and they had time and money to make it work.

Phase two involved introducing a worm into the _Veritas_ systems, that would be undetectable until it was deployed. And by the time it was deployed, the Talons would be out of station range and totally defenseless.

Vortash was the shuttle driver. It felt strange, being in Shepard’s shuttle without her, but she’d simply left it parked when she’d vanished that night from the Butlers’, and had never taken away his ignition code access, so he thought maybe she’d left it for him. At least that what he was going to assume.

Ripper, Sensat, Melenis, and Monteague all wore hardsuits, and looked vaguely menacing, hunched by the shuttle door as they disembarked from the hanger they had rented for this operation, and Garrus felt a thrill of pride for his squad. Ripper and Melenis were close quarters fighters, Monteague had tightly controlled biotics, and he and Sensat were both excellent with precision weapons. They needed to take the ship with as little damage to it as possible, so they required some finesse.

The shuttle hid in an asteroid cluster a dozen AUs out from Omega, and waited for the _Veritas_ to intercept based on the Talons’ flight plan. Vortash was an elegant pilot, and detached from the cluster with a flourish and a humm of the motion dampeners as the ship came into range.

“ _all clear archangel_. _receiving readouts and onboard telemetry from krul,_ ” Ripper’s mechanical voice intoned over the comm. His hardsuit was a deep, matte black, and seemed to suck in light, making Garrus’ head hurt.

They hailed the _Veritas,_ and the ship was brought onto their comms.

“What do you want?” Said a rough turian voice, flanging with annoyance. Garrus smiled. “Your ship.”

There was silence, and then someone swore, and Vortash’s voice chirped over the comms.

“Their guns are coming online.”

“Not for long,” Garrus sighed. He hit the command on his omnitool and the _Veritas_ went dark, and the cargo hold airlock dropped open as Krul’s worm took over and shut down systems across the ship. A stream of air and smuggled cargo and bodies burst from the cargo hold as the airlock opened into space and Vortash brought the shuttle down into the hold.

“Should have been pirates,” Monteague said over the comm, checking the seals on her armor one last time before the shuttle door opened. Garrus could hear the smile in her voice.

“ _Robin Hood_ ,” Ripper said.

“Who?” Sensat unclipped the pistol from her hip.

“Old Earth vigilante,” Monteague said, amused.

Mag boots hit the ground, the void opened to their left, and Garrus lead the long, slow way to the cargo bay doors as the airlock closed. His heart pounded at the thought of open space, and he thought for a moment of Fisher, floating among the debris of the ruined _Normandy._ How easy it would be to just… let go. There were a few Talons strapped into emergency seating along a far wall, but they were frozen and dead, killed by vacuum. Anyone not strapped down had been sucked out the airlock.

Garrus’ mag boots made slow going until gravity reasserted itself and alarms began to blare as the cargo bay repressurized.

“We’ve got oxygen, but keep those helmets on. Precision weapons out. Service stairs only, no elevators. ”

“Tell us more about Robbing Hood,” Melenis said, though Garrus couldn’t see her anywhere. His combat scanner told him she was three rooms ahead.

“Robin Hood. Robin, like, a sort of bird.”

“Ah.”

“ _he stole from the rich to feed the poor._ ”

“Fought against corrupt officials. Stole taxes back from the government.”

They met no security until they reached engineering, where a single guard was waiting, but before Garrus could even bring up his rifle to take a shot, the turian was already dead. Ripper crouched above the dead Talon, helmet lit from below by glow of his omnitool. Slowly, he withdrew the omniblade from the turian’s spine and then his tactical cloak ripped to life and he vanished, heading for the flight deck.

“ _was an excellent shot with a bow and arrow_ ,” Ripper continued over the sound of gunfire.

“Sounds like Archangel.”

“Naw,” Monteague sighed. “Archangel is more like Batman.”

“Humans have a strange obsession with naming their heroes after animals,” Melenis observed, and Garrus saw three lifesigns wink out on his combat scanner from her location. There was a pause. “I have looked up bats and robins. They seem like small, weak creatures. If I had a name that was based on an animal I would be _vret._ ”

Another Talon charged down the hall with a scream and Garrus shot him in the head.

In less than three minutes, they had possession of the _Veritas_. The Talons were mostly turian, which made the going tough, but soon there were bodies littering the flight deck, blood staining the carpet. Carpet! Garrus couldn’t believe it. The ship was not a military craft, and Garrus puzzled over the design of the flight deck, which had no discernible place to command from, just a star map and some uncomfortable looking chairs and out of date consoles.

The frigate was a fairly standard design, despite being a civilian class ship. Twelve Talons lay dead on various decks, with another five crew members spaced.

Garrus felt a vague sense of regret for the ones in the cargo hold who never even got a chance to fight. Getting spaced was no easy way to die.

“Vortash, you have the helm. Bring her around and set a course for the hanger we arranged. Sensat, Ripper, do a sweep, make sure we didn’t miss anyone and then start cleanup. Melenis, you handle communications with Base.”

“Yes, sir!” Vortash’s little blue lifesign indicator began to move on the combat scanner, and Garrus went to go inspect the rest of the ship.

The comm chatter started up again as his orders were carried out. “What’s _vret_?” Monteague asked.

“Look it up,” Melenis said.

“Jesus fucking Christ, Melenis. What is that thing?”

“It is _vret._ It is sadly extinct now. Rakhana could not sustain its magnificence.”

Monteague missed the deadpan in Melenis’ tone, which was understandable. Drell humor was easy to miss. “I can see why. It’s horrible…”

“It is certainly more frightening than a robin man in a hood.”

The nonsense dribbled on over the comm, and Garrus resisted the urge to snap at them. They were doing their jobs, and just because he was miserable didn’t mean that the rest of the squad had to be. He even looked up an image of the _vret_ when he had a moment, and he had to admit that at seven feet tall with two mouths, the thing was all sorts of terrifying. Nothing should have that many eyes...

 

 

**Shepard**

The trip to Freedom’s Progress took a day and a half, plenty of time to recover from her hangover and allow a sense of anxiety to seep in. Shepard had a feeling that she was forgetting something, or that she should be somewhere else… and she was occasionally tempted to re-establish her comm address and shock Vakarian with a quick hello, but the terror of his reaction kept her from doing more than fantasizing. Besides, what if he wanted to kill her? What if he thought she was like Aria, or had been working for Aria this whole time? She’d seen how Archangel operated-- eye for an eye. She didn’t want to risk it.

Besides, she had a job to do. By touchdown on Freedom’s Progress, Shepard wore her commando armor, with a boosted shield modulator to compensate for her lack of biotics. Armed with a pistol and an assault rifle, she decided to forgo the poor excuse of a shotgun she had in favor of a grenade launcher and a couple of proximity mines.

Freedom’s Progress was exactly how she’d expected it to be. Empty. But when Shepard landed the _Jane_ in the shipyard, she spotted something odd.

“One of these things is not like the others,” she hummed, eyeing the quarian vessel that occupied one of the LZs. She had no idea what she was going to find on Freedom’s Progress, be it Collectors, or Cerberus or something else, but she had not expected quarians.

Quarians who were conspicuously not at the landing zone. No one was even around to guard the ship.

She inspected the craft, an ancient, much repaired thing that rivaled the _Jane_ in status as “can that thing even fly?” Shepard felt heat radiate off the engines as she approached, indicating that they had recently landed. So, they’d arrived after the Collectors took the colony. But why?

Breaking into the ship was an option, but Shepard didn’t trust her tech skills enough to pit them against whatever booby traps the quarians had laid out for intruders. She prefered the direct approach, which was finding the quarians, and asking them what they were up to.

She started off at a jog, feeling the eerie silence of abandonment just like Persrop all over again, except this time there were a lot of Alliance combat drones. The little bastards wouldn’t hold still long enough for her to shoot them one by one, so Shepard planted a proximity mine, combined with a faux lifesign emitter she’d picked up from Merin a while back, and ran like hell. It was a neat trick that would fool basic VIs that were set to attack anything showing lifesigns, and the dones flocked to the “life mine” like varen to a steak. The resounding boom took out half a dozen, leaving her to pick off the last two with a bit more ease.

All that flying target practice with Vakarian paid off. The thought of their rooftop machinations caused her throat to constrict as she shot the last drone out of the sky.

No time for sentiment now. She’d wasted that opportunity.

As Shepard moved deeper into the empty colony, it began to snow. She wasn’t sure the last time she’d seen snow, real snow falling gently from the sky like in some retro earth vid about family, and holidays and goodness. It would have felt wholesome if the whole damn place hadn’t been completely abandoned.

Shepard’s combat scanner jammed, and she heard voices ahead, modulated voices. Quarians. She crept forward and listened-- something about a distress signal… not far now... mention of another ship… they must know the _Jane_ had landed.

Her pistol preceded her into the prefab where the quarians gathered, where she ended up staring down six assault rifles.

Then there was a flash of purple, and a voice, young and female, snapped out with a command. “Put those weapons down!”

Shepard didn’t move, her gun pointed at the woman in the purple suit.

“I’m here for the distress signal.” The lie was easy enough, and she watched the semi-opaque faceplate of the quarian commander’s helmet for any sign of the direction to take. Shepard generally liked quarians, found them expressive enough even without seeing their faces, but in this moment, staring down the muzzles of half a dozen guns, she wished she could get more.

“The distress signal? Really?” The woman sounded skeptical. She scanned Shepard with her omnitool and read that data. “You’re not Alliance, or merc. That’s a lot of firepower for a civilian.”

“Freelancer,” Shepard corrected. “Everyone needs a hobby.”

She felt the quarian smile. “What’s your name?”

Shepard smiled in return. “Shepard.”

The quarian sounded bemused. “That’s it? Just Shepard?”

Shepard nodded with a small smile.

“I’m Tali'Zorah nar Rayya,” the quarian said. “This is my squad. Do you usually work alone?”

Shepard felt a pang, another quickening in her throat as she thought about Base, and how full of life and piss and spitfire the squad was, how Vakarian had made it so, and Weaver and Krul and... Time was, the answer “yes” would have rolled easily off her tongue, but she managed another convincing smile.

“Depends. Ghost colonies are sort of a niche interest.”

“I thought you said you were responding to a distress signal?”

“Empty colonies are certainly distressing.”

Tali’Zorah started, but it was impossible to read her. “Why do I get the feeling you are a pain in the ass?”

That startled a laugh out of Shepard, and she grinned. “You’re not wrong,” she said, head tilted to the side. It felt good to laugh, but a pang of guilt fluttered in in Shepard’s heart, testing to see if she could feel the ache of loss just yet… reminding her that she wasn’t allowed be happy. Being happy got people killed. She shouldn’t be able to laugh after what had just happened back on Omega. Her smile faded, but Tali’zorah was already putting plans in motion, snapping orders.

“You’re with us now. The distress signal is coming from a quarian who was on his pilgrimage when the colony was hit by… whatever it was that made this place empty. He’s the one who armed the colony defenses, so expect more turrets, mechs.... ”

“I’m not working with a human,” another quarian spat.

Shepard hooked her pistol on her belt and crossed her arms. “I’m not your enemy. In fact, I’m here trying to figure out who the enemy actually is.” “Damn right,” muttered another quarian, in a red and gold suit. “We can send you back to babysit the ship, if you like, Prazza.”

There was an awkward pause, but the unhappy quarian didn’t say anything more, and they moved out, Shepard falling in beside her new, red ally.

“I’m Kal'Reegar,” the man said, quiet, so Prazza the Sanctimonious couldn’t hear. “Marine, Migrant Fleet. I’ve got one job… protect _her._ ” There was a thinly veiled threat in the jut of his helmet as he pointed his chin at Tali’zorah.

Shepard grinned at the bodyguard. Tali’zorah was obviously important, and definitely in charge. “Pleasure, Kal’Reegar. Any idea what made this place a ghost town?” She already knew, deep in her gut what had done it, but she needed evidence, clues as to where they might have gone, and how she might follow.

She also didn’t want to start spouting children’s stories about galactic boogiemen and make the quarians think she was even _more_ insane than she actually was.

The quarian shook his head, helmet swinging from side to side. “Not a clue. They don’t pay me to ask questions. I’m just here to make sure Tali gets back without a suit rupture. Here, let me patch you into the comms, at least.”

Shepard grunted her thanks as they reached a huge hangar door, and Tali’zorah started hacking the console, fingers flying. “Combat scanners are… kelah! There’s an YMIR mech, headed this way. Damn it Veetor, you bosh’tet ! We’re on your side!”

The quarians were all commandos of some sort, and swung into defensive positions behind cover. Shepard found a vantage point from within a nearby prefab and swung her grenade launcher from off her back. The weapon telescoped and the microcomputer chirped as it calibrated, just as she felt the ground shake. Gods, she hated YMIRs. She saw a flash of purple fabric, followed by red, and then the prefab rocked with an explosion.

Recovering, Shepard launched a grenade at the mech, then another, which did nothing but attract the mech’s attention to her location. Without biotics, she had to rely on her combat expertise, and so she patiently lured the YMIR away from the quarian line as Tali and a few others overloaded the giant mech’s shield and spat combat drones.

The armor proved more of a challenge-- someone had shredder ammo, but it wasn’t enough. Shepard clung to cover as a barrage of bullets ripped apart the prefab, cursing as she heard a quarian scream, and chatter over the comm about being cornered as the YMIR gave up on Shepard and headed towards the others. Deep breath. Could she pull off a warp field? She hadn’t risked biotics in weeks, but…

Sweat beaded on her brow as she let her nerves light up with blue fire, and a moment later, metal screamed as it was wrenched and dented. She heard a gleeful cry from the quarians, a burst of commands over the comm, and then a resounding explosion, but all of it dimmed as the pain hit her nervous system. Shepard submitted to it, curled up around herself and let her body ride out the burning in her nerves, even as the gunfire ceased.

“Shepard?” Tali’zorah stood over her, and Shepard uncurled from her fetal position, drenched in sweat and breathing hard. “Are you alright?”

“Fine,” she managed. “Just a bit of fun with biotics.” The quarian offered her a hand up, and Shepard stood slowly, letting the remaining pain-tinged shocks rock through her nervous system.

“I don’t know anything about biotics, but… you have a strange idea of fun,” Tali said, peering at her.

“So I’ve been told,” Shepard said, her mouth twisting. No more heroics. And hopefully no more YMIR mechs.

The rest of the rescue was easy as skeet shooting down drones, which is exactly what they did. It was disturbing how quiet the colony was, and Shepard’s hair stood on end as eight pairs of boots echoed across the stony landscape. Freedom’s Progress was beautiful, and had been a wealthy colony for being so deep in the Terminus, which explained all the defenses they had to fight through.

They found the missing quarian in a surveillance bunker that would have made Krul drool. The poor young man was mad with fear, and Shepard took a step back as Tali talked him down, not wanting to spook him.

“What’s this, Veetor?” Tali breathed, gazing at the scrambled data that played across the half dozen screens. The man shuddered, and began to mumble.

“Monsters coming back… mechs will protect… safe from swarm… safe… from swarm.” He shuddered, typing frantically. “Have to hide. No monsters.”

“He’s obviously traumatized,” Shepard muttered. She wondered if there was any data to be had on the surveillance footage, or if she could get something out of Veetor...

Veetor’s helmet snapped to face Shepard. “A human? How come they didn’t find you? Take you away?”

“Who didn’t find me?”

“The monsters! The swarms! They took _everyone.”_ Veetor sound like he might cry, or faint, or both.

“I wasn’t here when… when the monsters came.” _Collectors._ “I came after. To find you. And find out what happened.”

Veetor broke free of Tali’s grasp. “You don’t know, then! You weren’t here… the monsters, the seeker swarms, they find you. I know. I see everything. Look, human. Look!”

Veetor made a few frantic strokes on his omni-tool and the random surveillance footage flickered and died. A moment later, the screens lit up in one unified image.

“What is that…” Shepard watched as a grisly scene played out in a ten second loop. An alien, unlike any being she had ever seen, was dragging a body. Another alien was guiding a pod. “I knew it…” She turned to Tali. “Tali’zorah, this is what I came here for.” Her voice was strident, urging the quarian commander to listen. “Those are Collectors, and they are threatening human colonies.”

Tali watched her for a moment, before she spoke, modulated voice mild, almost amused in the face of Shepard’s insinstance. “I knew you weren’t here for a quarian distress signal.”

Shepard took a step forward, and Kal put himself between her, Veetor and Tali.

“This data is vital to my mission. Vital to the safety of every human colony in the Terminus Systems. Perhaps beyond. You’ve got Veetor, he’s safe now. I need this footage.” Shepard said, peering around the marine. “Please?”

Tali’s helmet seemed to study Shepard, and she placed a hand on Kal’s shoulder, moving him gently aside. “A human once gave me data that was vital to the Migrant Fleet.” She sounded sad, almost wistful. This Tali’zorah was a dreamer, perhaps even romantic-- good, Shepard could use that love of sentiment to her advantage if she was going to resist. “I will return the favor, and consider the...debt repaid. Prazza, give her the footage.”

“Of course. Thank you. This could save a lot of lives.” She bowed her head, and smiled up at the quarian woman. That should be enough to satisfy Cerberus… footage like this might even be enough to convince the Council and the Alliance that there was an actual Collector threat. Maybe she wouldn’t even have to go to Cerberus at all. A little bubble of hope sprung up in her chest. Just maybe... “My ship’s parked next to yours.”

Without mechs and drones to impede their progress, it didn’t take long to return to the spaceport where their ships waited but Veetor clung to Shepard the whole time, muttering warnings about monsters and swarms until Shepard had to tell him it would be all right, that he was safe, trying without success to pass him off to quarian hands.

When they reached the landing zone, another ship was waiting for them-- one of human design, bearing the yellow-orange emblem emblazoned against black and white plating on the hull. The quarians drew their guns so fast Shepard didn’t have time to extract herself from Veetor’s grip and she stood in the cluster of quarians, staring at two soldiers who wore Cerberus emblems on their armor.

“Hello Shepard.” A white woman in a white jumpsuit that clung to her like she’d been dipped in latex stepped forward, handling an SMG easily, followed by a black man who carried himself like a soldier and wielded a shotgun. Shepard couldn't be sure but she sensed that neither were the people she had encountered on Presrop. The woman was too tall, too thin, to be the one she’d gone punch for punch with, and the man didn’t have a sword.

“I’m Miranda Lawson. I think you have some data for us.”

Tali turned to Shepard. “You’re with _Cerberus?_ You bosh’tet.. I-- _”_

“Not… exactly,” Shepard muttered with a shake of her head, keeping her eyes on the two soldiers. “We have a common project.”

“Guns down,” Tali commanded to her squad, pushing the muzzle of Kal’s gun up towards the gray, snow-swollen sky. “I don’t want a firefight. What do you really intend to do with the data, Shepard?”

“Exactly what I told you. Fight the Collectors. Stop the attacks on human colonies. And figure out why the hell they are abducting humans in the first place.”

Miranda Lawson smiled. “Goals perfectly in line with Cerberus. We look forward to working with you, Shepard.”

Tail’zorah’s face turned from Shepard to Miranda as she examined Veetor, and Kal bristled.

“Bring the Quarian. We’ll need to question him.”

Shepard’s mouth dropped. “What?” she said, at the same time Tali gasped.

Shepard took a step forward until she was nose to nose with the Cerberus operative. “Lawson, you said?” Shepard was taller than Miranda by a few inches, but everything about the woman spoke of poise, of brilliance. Even her hair was perfect. Who had perfect hair right after space travel? “I’ve got the intel, but Veetor is traumatized and needs medical care. From his _own_ people. He goes with the quarians.”

“We can provide adequate medical care for his psychosis.”

Lawson seemed not to notice or care that the quarian commandos had closed ranks around Veetor, hands drifting to their guns.

“Veetor goes with Tali'zorah. You get me, and you get the data, or you get nothing.”

Miranda froze, and her eyes darted to the quarian in the purple suit. “Tali’zorah?” Miranda was quiet for a long moment, as she studied the young woman, whose gloved hands were tensed, clenching and unclenching over her pistol. Something passed over Miranda’s features for a moment, before she schooled her expression into a cool mask of superiority again. “Very well, Shepard. We’ll need a full report on his behaviors and observations, but if you think you have enough data, some kind of proof...”

“I do. Much more than a ten second clip from a terrified quarian. I’m the one you’ll want to interview.” She’d have to hand over the data Krul had decrypted, but… She turned to Tali. “Go, before they change their minds. And… thank you.”

Tali gave a sharp nod, and her squad sprang into action. Prazza hustled Veetor to the ship, surrounded by the rest of the squad. Tali stayed behind a moment, shadowed by her looming body guard. She had venom in her voice, and curiously, concern as well. “I don’t know who you are, Shepard, but Cerberus is a dangerous place to play.”

Shepard smiled at the little quarian, suddenly realizing just how young the girl sounded. “Don’t worry Tali’zorah nar Rayya. I’m dangerous too.”

Tali’s face plate held no expression, but Shepard saw her shoulders slump, making her look sad. Tali turned to go, and Shepard watched her and Kal vanish into the airlock before turning her full attention to the Cerberus operatives.

She ignored Miranda, who stood with her arms crossed over her chest, waiting, and peered at the soldier instead.

“I didn’t get your name,” she said to him.

The man stood at parade rest, but at her words he stepped forward and offered a hand. Shepard took it, finding his shake firm and friendly over her armored gloves, but unease settled into the pit of her stomach as he introduced himself.

“Jacob Taylor. Security specialist. Looking forward to working with you, Shepard.” He settled back into his military stance and Shepard narrowed her eyes.

“Former Alliance?”

Jacob laughed, rubbed the back of his neck. His voice was low, intense and tinged with bitterness. “Yeah. We’ve all got our reasons for being with Cerberus.”

Somewhere behind them, the quarian ship sputtered to life, and Shepard felt a rush of hot wind.

Miranda inclined her elegant head, and they walked towards the _Jane._

“We’ve had our eyes on you for some time, Shepard.” The hair on Shepard’s neck stood upright. “It’s rare that someone of your talents operates all on their own for as long as you have.”

“So you’ve heard of me?”

“Of course. Shepard, the abolitionist, the great emancipator. You’ve done more for human advancement in the Traverse and the Terminus over the past ten years than any other individual out there, weather you meant to, or not. And your biotics are legendary.”

“I’m also immune to flattery,” Shepard deadpanned, her expression flat. “And my biotics aren’t what they used to be.”

“We are aware.” Shepard felt the revulsion she had for being observed and evaluated creep up her spine. “While the incident on Presrop was probably unpleasant for you--”

Shepard barked a laugh. “Unpleasant doesn’t begin to cover it, Lawson. One of your agents _stabbed_ me. Who get stabbed anymore?”

Miranda’s mouth tightened at the corners but she cut over Shepard’s commentary. “--it let us know a great deal more about you. That’s why we have an offer. The surveillance data is useful, of course, and we know about the encrypted files you have, if not what is in them, but we wanted to observe you in the field, and Freedom’s Progress provided ample opportunity without any insurmountable danger given the current state of your biotics.”

It seemed that Presrop had been more than a skirmish between her and the two anonymous operatives… it had been a fight that had put her on the table for recruitment. Funny how getting stabbed could have such unexpected results. Now she was doubly glad she’d insisted that Veetor go with his people-- no need to set a precedence of tolerance for xenophobia….

“Pity about the Quarian, but your data seems sufficient. So, are you interested in hearing what Cerberus has to offer?”

Shepard glanced between her ship and the Cerberus vessel. She had the data… she could still give these assholse the slip and make a run for it. Head to the Citadel… as a former Specter candidate she could get a meeting with the Council, with that prat Udina and...

No. She’d tried working with the Council. She’d failed. Cerberus might be dangerous, might be extremists, might be deeply unethical, but they had resources just waiting to be thrown at her… and they could be manipulated.

“Go ahead, Lawson. Tell me why you’re worth my time.”

Miranda smiled. “We have access to L5 implants, and a way to regenerate the neural damage you’ve experienced. And that’s just the beginning.”

Shepard’s mouth twitched at the mention of L5s. How did Cerberus get their hands on experimental biotic amps? Right… she didn’t want to know, because she knew she wasn’t going to like the answer, and Cerberus was really her only option.

“All right. Lead the way.”

**~~~**

Shepard wouldn’t leave her ship, of course, so with some small effort they stowed the _Plain Jane_ in the Cerberus vessel's shuttle bay, and made their way to… wherever they were going to take her.

She should be concerned, but at this point there was no turning back, no contingencies left. She was breaking her biggest rule-- _No joining,_ her mind screamed, as she dropped onto the couch in the briefing room. It was nicely appointed in leather and chrome, a far cry from the run down, utilitarian sort of space travel she was used to. She could hardly even hear the eezo core humming three decks below. It made her uneasy.

Miranda paced the room and Jacob stood stalwart in his military discipline, seemingly uninterested, though Shepard could feel him listening as a Cerberus yeoman in sharp looking black and white uniform brought in a datapad and a cart-load of medical equipment.

After looking it over, Miranda handed Shepard the datapad.

“Project Phoenix?” Shepard asked when she read the title of the first document. “Sounds incredibly sketchy. I tend not to join things that start with project and reference mythical creatures. Lacks an air of legitimacy.”

Miranda just stared at her. “As far as I know, you’ve never joined anything in your life, Shepard. You wouldn’t even join the Specters, in the end. Maybe it’s time you made a stand.”

Shepard glanced down at the project charter. Upgrading biotic operatives with L5 implants, heavy bone weave, heavy skin weave, augmented eyesight and hearing, improved neurological response to heighten reflexes... the list of available “upgrades” went on.

“So you want to Frankenstein me, and then set me loose on the Collectors?”

“Pretty much,” Jacob said from his spot by the door. “You made our shortlist of potential candidates, and when you contacted us… well, let’s just say Cerberus finds you compelling.” Shepard hummed noncommittally, though her breath quickened when she read over the L5 amp specs, and the new procedures for implanting it. That alone would make signing up with Cerberus worth it.

“Remember what I said about flattery not working on me?”

“Flattery might not work, but funding always does.” Miranda reached over and tapped a button on the data pad. When Shepard glanced down again, she nearly choked. She was looking at a budget and… it was the largest number she’d seen attached to anything she was remotely connected to, all invested into medical upgrades, personnel, equipment…

Even Aria didn’t have these kinds of funds.

“I had no idea Cerberus was so loaded.”

“We have invested a great deal of time, money, and effort into Project Phoenix and other… initiatives that will contribute to stopping the Collectors.” A small frown wrinkled that perfect brow, and Shepard tasted a hint of bitterness in the air as Jacob shifted slightly, looking anywhere but at the two women. Miranda continued: “You are to be the tip of the spear, aimed directly at the Collectors, ready to stop them. At the source.”

Those words caught her. At the source. Shepard sat in complete silence, letting the words sink in, even as she wanted to sink through the plush couch cushions she currently sat on.

“That means going through the Omega 4 Relay.”

“Exactly.”

“That’s suicide.”

“We’re asking you to do the impossible, Shepard. No pressure.”

“I’m going to need a better ship. And a real crew. And I want to see the files Cerberus has on me. Oh, and I want my shotgun back. That ninja asshole on Presrop lifted it.”

Neither of them asked her to clarify ‘that ninja asshole,’ which meant they knew exactly who she was talking about. Miranda’s mouth even twisted, and Shepard tasted another undercurrent of bitterness. She put a pin in it, to exploit and prod later. If she was going to be working with Miranda, it would be good to find her fault lines, the places to apply pressure… just so, just in case.

“You’ll get a ship, and crew. We’ll share the dossier we have on you. We’ll help you assemble a team, but once you have your upgrades and your ship, you’ll be in command. Directives will come down from top Cerberus command, however. You won’t be alone.”

Shepard looked at the budget again. Biotic implants, cybernetic upgrades, neural regeneration therapy. A ship and a crew. “All right… I’m going to need a hell of a team, though.” Her mind slipped back to Omega, back to the squad of crazy ex mercs and hackers, biotics and pyros, soldiers and freedom fighters, and… one very talented turian sniper. It was too good to be true, of course. Cerberus had a catch or two that that they would share with her once she was too far in to back out, she was sure of it, but Shepard was used to working within constraints, and out-maneuvering and counter-manipulating where she could. Once they gave her a ship there wasn’t much they could do, and she _did_ actually plan on fighting the collectors. “And what about my shotgun?”

Miranda’s eyebrow climbed slowly into her hairline, her face pinched.

Jacob coughed, and Miranda sighed, and Shepard found that those two little noises were all she needed to know to get a true measure of their natures.

“I’ll… see what I can do.”

The dossier Cerberus had on Shepard didn’t say anything about Aria, but they knew pretty much everything else there was to know about her public activities. They had her blood type, her height and weight, her biotic strength and abilities. They even had her favored combat methods: biotics, shotguns, and baring close combat, fancy ammo and lots of explosions.

Her psyc profile made her laugh.

_“Independent to the point of oppositional defiance. Fearless to the point of disregard for personal safety, but highly invested in the safety of those under command. Strong leadership skills if the cause is right. Strategic, tactical thinking but only invests fully if the cause aligns with moral frameworks of justice. Paranoid. Approach for recruitment with care.”_

Cerberus also knew her history, but it all seemed to be pulled from what the Council and the Specters knew of her. She was the lone survivor of Mindoir, entire family killed or taken as slaves, status unknown. She’d received her first amp implant at the age of 13, and had some genetic and cybernetic modification over the years. She visited Earth for the first time when she was 17, and received token financial repatriations from Colonial Affairs as well as some sensationalist media coverage regarding her status as a sole survivor of slave raids on human on one of the first successful human built agrarian colonies, and how she had survived for ten years without a family to call her own.

Earth had never seemed palatable after that.

There was mention that she had been in contact with Alliance recruiters in Rio, especially the Ascension project that was formed in the wake of the BAaT fiasco, but that she had fallen out of contact with them when she vanished back into the Terminus systems, supposedly to undergo commando training on Illium, which she quit when she refused to join the Eclipse Sisters in Nos Astra.

Another cringe-worthy episode in the life of Nym Shepard.

The rest of the file detailed an incomplete list of the biometric and bureaucratic alias she’d used over the years, her work in the Traverse, fighting slavery and how she was present during the Skyllian Blitz, saving the lives of over eighty civilians who had been kettled in by raiders in the markets. The Alliance had offered to honor her at their memorial service, but she didn't show up.

Someone in Cerberus obviously had access to classified Specter documents, or was _very_ good at research. Perhaps both.

The hardest part of reading her file was the descriptions of her work with Nihilus, and how she’d been a top candidate for the first human Specter because she worked alone, and because she worked so well with non-humans, at least until Eden Prime. At least until Nihlus had died and Fisher had become the first human Specter, and not just the Alliance’s poster child, but humanity’s at large.

Now, two years and some change later, and they knew she was working with Archangel, but had no known commitments with any organization besides the vigilantes on Omega.

She was ripe for recruiting, and they had done just what was suggested in her psych profile. Approach with care.

She saw why Cerberus wanted her. Shepard was human, but she was no racist, no xenophobe, and Cerberus could use that reputation to shift public perception away from the idea that they were human supremacists. Well, Shepard would sign whatever damm contract they gave her, take their upgrades, take their money, and at the first available opportunity, she’d cut the cord and run. She didn’t give a damn about her own reputation. She needed their resources. She needed that surgery.

“Why do I get the sense that I’m going to regret not getting a lawyer to look at this before I sign,” she said as Miranda held out a biometric scanner, and Shepard placed the finger tips of her right hand on the port. One finger was still splinted from her bar fight a few days ago, the knuckles bruised. Her face wasn’t in much better shape, and her tongue darted to tease the gap in her teeth as the scanner winked on and took her prints and DNA samples.

Miranda sealed the records and uploaded the data with a flash of her omnitool, and with that, Shepard was a Cerberus operative.

“We’ll continue this in med bay. I’ll do a physical intake and triage on your injuries.”

Shepard followed, like the good dog she was.

**~~~**

Miranda seemed to be a woman of many talents. She was a biotic, a neurologist, and a technician, and though people called her “Operative” instead of “Doctor” Lawson, Shepard learned through that she was also a medical professional.

Down in med bay, Miranda ran scans, took measurements, and asked a plethora of invasive questions, icy as as a Noverian blizzard, at least until she saw the scars on the back of Shepard’s neck. That’s when Shepard heard a sharp intake of breath from behind her.

“Those are some impressive scars,” she murmured.

Shepard sat on the examination table. “Not pretty, I know. Being a child biotic in the Terminus Systems was never the safest thing in the world. I’m just lucky no one locked me up and ran tests on me. My first was an L2, and we all know how well those worked. I still get nosebleeds sometimes. The first L3 I got was faulty, and this one burnt out after a series of unfortunate events.”

“Red sand overdose, followed by stimulant abuse.”

“Something like that, yeah.”

“Hold this,” Miranda said, handing her a funny looking medical scanner. “I need to run some tests”

Two days, several dozen tests, and three security clearance levels later, and they arrived at a space station tucked away in some uncharted system.

Shepard disembarked with Lawson and Taylor, skimming the surroundings with a cool expression of feigned neutrality. Her new security clearance allowed her to know that they were docked at Lazarus Station, but not _where_ the station was. It was a medical facility of some sort, with scientists and aids scuttling about like ants, security provided mostly by mechs and drones, and by the obscurity of the location itself. The station was appointed in the same chrome-and-leather style that spoke of a private operation and not a military one, and she wondered if Cerberus had hired an environmental designer to give their secret hideouts aesthetic cohesion. Whoever was making decisions about what to spend money on certainly had expensive taste.

A lone silhouette lurked at the edge of the airlock, the protrusion of what might have been the hilt of a sword over one broad shoulder.

“Kai Leng,” Jacob breathed from over her shoulder, and Shepard’s eyes locked on the figure as they approached. He was holding something, long and chrome and intimately familiar. The scar on her stomach twinged even as her fingers twitched to hold her shotgun again.

So the space ninja had a name. She stretched her long legs into a juggernaut’s march as she pulled her pistol from it’s clip, leaving Miranda and Jacob scrambling in her wake as she aimed her pistol at Kai Leng’s head and tried not to let finger twitch on the trigger, even as the operative trained the black-eyed barrel of her own shotgun back at her.

“Stalemate, fucker,” she breathed.

“Miss me?” The man hissed back.

“You have no idea.”

“Enough!” Miranda stalked towards them, glowing blue in the corner of Shepard’s eye. “You weren’t supposed to be here, Operative Leng. Leave the damn gun and go.”

Neither of the moved. “It’s such a nice gun, though. I wanted to make sure it got back to the _Operative of the Hour_ in person.”

He’d been wearing a helmet on Peresop, but now she got a good look at him. He moved like a panther, all coiled grace and hyper awareness, and Shepard knew she was outclassed, at least for the moment. Maybe she could take him with an L5 and some backup… maybe. The tightness around his mouth spoke of mockery and his eyes were black, dead and flat. Everything about him spoke of boredom and cruelty. He had a face _made_ for punching.

“Clearly you two have met.” Jacob stood with his arms crossed, eyes darting between Shepard and Leng.

“Yeah, mostly I met his sword.” The scar in her gut twinged again to remind her. “Looks like we’re on the same team now. Or we will be, when I get my gun back.”

Leng jerked her gun away, and she lowered her pistol slightly, still ready to shoot the fucker if need be. “It’s a lovely piece of equipment. Inspired by the Krogan M-300, I beleive, but with a higher shot capacity. Never seen anything like it, except on Tuchanka. Have you ever been to Tuchanka, Shepard?” She didn’t answer him, just held out the hand that didn’t hold her pistol. Something else besides the old wound rippled in her gut.

She shouldn’t be so attached to that gun, shouldn’t be so _sentimental_. It was a liability to have such material attachments, and for people, for potential enemies to _know_ about them, but without the gun, and without her biotics she’d felt like a toothless varren, worse than useless and needing to be taken out back and shot for her own good. With that gun, she felt like… like Nihilus was with her, guiding her aim and her trajectory, approving of her actions and her decisions. While she’d always suffered a bit from sentimentality, her attachment to the gun bordered on superstition, and Shepard had always loathed magical thinking.

It bothered her that the gun made her feel closer to a dead friend. She wanted to hug it.

“It’s a special place. Forged by unique circumstances, honed by trauma. No other place like Tuchanka in the whole galaxy. I did some research on this gun, you know. Commissioned by a now-dead Specter. Cost a lot of money, this gun. Ultralight materials, a built in motion dampener to compensate for kickback -- without it there would be enough kickback to break a human’s arm. Nothing like this gun in the whole galaxy.”

“Are you done explaining my own gun to me?” She asked, sweet as sugar. Shepard didn’t negotiate with assholes, but she did enjoy letting them run out of steam.

Kai Leng smiled.

“Don’t you have an assignment you should be working on, Operative Leng?” Miranda said. The blue glow around Miranda died and she stood with arms barred across her chest, hipped cocked and frown deepening.

Leng’s mouth twisted in contempt and just like that, he shoved the shotgun at Shepard, who snatched it from him, feeling something warm and triumphant slip back into place as her fingers found the familiar grooves and handles. Goddess, Spirits, whoever she should pray to, she _loved_ this gun.

She clipped her pistol back on her belt and examined the shotgun. It was in perfect condition, oiled, cleaned and calibrated. It sprung to life in her hands, telescoping out into a full barrell, the heat-sink clip free of corrosion or warping that might speak of overuse or overheating. It even smelled familiar, like gun oil and ozone and safety. She popped a heat sink into the clip and the gun tweeted that it was ready to use.

“Don’t you have another project to fail, Operative Lawson?” Leng drawled.

Her eyes snapped from their slow caress of her gun, suddenly watching the Cerberus Operatives. Shepard put a pin in “project failure,” filed under Miranda Lawson’s fault lines. It wasn’t the first time she’d sensed a story.

“Looks like we’re on the same team now, Shepard. Good luck with Project Phoenix and… try not to get stabbed.”

The operative turned on his heel and stalked away as the adrenaline started to recede, leaving Shepard feeling strung out and restless.

“I already hate that guy,” she breathed, and somewhere behind her, Jacob Taylor laughed.

**~~~**

Shepard was naked, in a hospital gown, or in spandex for much of her stay on Lazarus station. She shivered on cold tables or waited in sterile rooms, her privacy and her pride invaded and eroded to the point that she no longer felt quite human, which was funny, considering this was Cerberus.

She had to keep reminding herself that after this whole ordeal, her biotis would be fixed, and she’d be the one in command. This was just the trial, to make sure they were investing in the right suicidal maniac.

They tested her physical endurance, made her run on treadmills and lift weights while attached to respiratory machines and electrodes, assessed her fitness, her strength, her immune system, her nervous system, tissue health and regeneration capabilities. There were a lot of electrodes involved.

They tested her mental abilities, like hacking skills, which were moderate, her knowledge of VI and AI theory, which was minimal, her proficiency with explosives, which was haphazard, if gleeful. They tested her proficiency with firearms, her accuracy, and her aim. People stopped their own practice to watch her shoot at the range, which they let her wear clothes for, thankfully.

She showed off, and even made a few tentative friends among the soldiers. Ex-Alliance types, mostly, Jacob Taylor among them.

Psychiatrists ran personality tests and psyc profiles, “to assist with team building and crew demographics.”

She didn’t bother to tell them that she already had a team. No reason to have them intervene until they gave her the resources promised.

They warned her against more concussions-- she had some visible signs of head trauma and any more would be difficult to reverse. She told them that Kai Leng should stay the hell out of her way, then.

She wouldn’t let them fix her tooth. Her tongue kept returning to that empty, raw spot in her mouth like it was a talisman against all the things that hounded her, a reminder that if she didn’t remain in control of herself she’d lose more than another molar.

Finally, finally they scheduled the amp upgrade procedure, with a smattering of cybernetic upgrades-- eyesight, hearing, and neural regen therapy.

She’d be asleep for five days.

Shepard felt nothing about it all, through the entire whirlwind of medical attention. She would do what it took to get an L5, and to make her nervous systems functional and responsive again.

Miranda was the project manager, the chief medical officer, and though she would not be operating, she’d be there for every procedure.

It was odd, but Shepard liked Miranda, and enjoyed that the Cerberus operative was easy to read despite her icy exterior. Shepard sat on a gurney with an IV in her arm, her shotgun in one corner of the room like a lucky charm, her tongue poking at the gap in her teeth, waiting to be administered the good stuff that would let her slip into dreamless, painless rest while she underwent half a dozen surgeries. Miranda promised that there would be no pain but some disorientation when she woke. She made Miranda promise to keep her shotgun handy, just in case.

“Are you nervous?” Miranda stacked a pile of datapads neatly for the fifth time.

Shepard smiled lazily from the gurney. “No,” she said after a moment. “But you are. Why?”

“I am not nervous. I’m anticipating. We’re all invested in you, Shepard, and your success starts with us, getting your upgrades right. A lot is riding on us. Both of us.”

The thoughts of Miranda’s mysterious failures made Shepard tilt her head to the side in thought. She wondered how many Project Phoenix operatives had come before her, how many failed L5 implants were installed before the neurosurgeon could safely quote his 98% success probability.

Miranda held a sharp little instrument and held Shepard’s arm over a surgical tray in one cool hand, fingers tracing along her inner arm until she found the slight bead of a microprocessor. “This will only sting a moment,” she said, and indeed, Shepard felt a pinch, and then blood welled as Miranda removed her omnitool.

“One implant down. Five to go,” Shepard sighed as Miranda cleaned and stored the omni in a little vail.

“Lie down, Shepard,” Miranda said, and Shepard did so, staring at the polished metal of the ceiling and wondering how life had brought her to this point.

Miranda hit a button on a nearby console as the surgeon entered, and then Miranda was standing at her shoulder.

“Count backwards from ten, Shepard.”

She started at ten, like the good dog she was. She thought about Aria and wondered if this was what Omega’s pirate queen had in mind when she’d tasked her adoptive daughter with stopping the Collectors. But she moved on to number eight and Krul’s face bloomed in her mind, and she knew he’d be so angry when he found out she’d gone to bed with Cerberus.

The numbers seven and six started to make her feel a little fuzzy, but she hoped that Sensat and Weaver, and even Sidonis, that sanctimonious prick, would understand. Butler would never question her… but Cerberus was going to be a hard sell for the turians.

The number five slurred from numb lips, and she felt a surge of fear through the buzzing, pulsing anaesthetics taking over her system. Fear. Sudden realization that no one knew where she was, and if things went wrong she would simply… disappear.

Why hadn’t she made any contingencies? She always had a backup, a redundancy, an escape route.

“F-four,” she managed, and her vision blue-shifted, and the fear faded and the blue shift was… comforting. She’d never really appreciated the color blue before. Blue was always asari, always… Aria. But now how blue was something else. Something... _him_ , from cerulean eyes to the geometry of his clan markings to the armor he wore and she felt nothing now but regret.

The last number she remembered saying was “three,” but it felt more like the word “sorry,” or maybe the name “Vakarian.”

 

~~~

 

**Garrus**

Vortash crawled over the hull of the _Veritas_ like a giant spider, getting the new upgrades installed. Krul was somewhere deep in the ship's computer systems, setting up servers, and Garrus and Weaver did some math problems. Sensat had long ago wandered away in disgust to go do something practical like pull the carpet out of the CIC, because apparently math was boring.

Garrus had to to disagree. He was a bit out of his depth with astrographic calculus-- Garrus prefered calibrating firing algorithms and working on engines to astrophysics, but there was a certain similarity between optimizing the way a gun points itself and figuring out if a ship is going to end up inside a planet when it comes out of FTL. He and Weaver worked steadily on figuring out the limits of the drive core and trying to develop a few new algorithms to compensate for the drift they would need for precision FTL jumps without having to retrofit the engines entirely. Garrus was also trying to improve his understanding of human’s base ten with Weaver, who had a pretty good grasp of base nine, and could translate.

He finished off a telemetry proof and passed it to Weaver. “Check this over, see what you think,” he said. Weaver’s head bobbed as ze looked at his work, the flexible ropes of hir black fringe swaying. Garrus marveled at variety of human hair as he watched Weaver work. It was unlike Shepard’s hair, which was red and wildly curly, like a cloud, or Monteague’s hair, which was glossy and straight, shot with silver. Weaver’s hair framed hir round face in thick, equal segments, and he wondered if ze braided hir hair into that shape or if it just grew that way.

Weaver called them ‘‘locks.’

“You dropped a zero,” ze said, returning the datapad. “That jump would end us in the galactic core.”

Garrus frowned at the data pad, trying to find where he’d made the error. “I just don’t get--” His wrist buzzed and Garrus glanced down at his omnitool, the little indicator holo blinking up at him. “Hang on, message coming in… Video message… weird.” He couldn’t remember the last time he’d received a video message. He’d cut contact with anyone who would send him a video instead of leaving a text message or voice message-- only Solana used to send him vidmail back when he was serving in the military, but that had been years ago… and his big sister didn’t have any way to contact him now.

The comm address was one he didn’t recognize. He exchanged a mystified glance with Weaver and played the message.

Shepard’s face bloomed to holographic life on his wrist. Garrus’ heart lept, then crashed into his stomach as if his entire insides had been blown out an airlock. She had two black eyes, and a massive bruise across her face. Her nose was bleeding slowly…

_“I’m setting this vid to piggyback off of the first signal it encounters if my vitals fail. If I live, I’m deleting this. Should have made a dead man’s switch years ago, but… I didn’t have anyone to send it to.”_

Garrus froze, staring in horror. Dead man’s switch? Failed vitals? Weaver crowded over to peer at his wrist, and Garrus watched in horror as the message played out.

_“So. Vakarian, this is for you.”_


	19. Sisyphus Shrugs

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A chapter, finally! Thank you all for your patience. My muse left me for other projects this summer, but I hope this chapter makes up for the wait. I can't stick to a posting schedule right now, but I hope to finish this fic this year! We're so close to some kind of end!
> 
> All of your love and support has meant the world to me. Thank each and every one of you, from those who read and move on to those who comment on every chapter. <3 
> 
> As as always, thank you theAmazingBlue_J for being an amazing beta reader and an even better friend.
> 
> Also, I changed the Series name to Nymesis, just because Alpha & Omega is a little obvious at this point and it turns out this story is an awful lot about names, and Nym's full name is super cool.

Too late to keep the world from dying this time  
Too late to spread the love you have  
One day when we are ready for crying  
One day I know that we'll be there

Kiss the Sky - Shawn Lee

 

****Shepard** **

Three…

_Noise rent the air and flesh burned. Metal slid into skin and burrowed deeper into muscle, found organic circuitry and made it wrong-wired and lit up with other ways of being alive, the kind of alive that didn’t eat or dream or sleep, only did what it was programed to do._

Two…

_Worlds died much faster than they might have on their own. The galaxy was burning, slowly, over centuries, then all at once. No one seemed to notice._

One…

_Orange sky and lavender smoke, the last desperate rabbit-tattoo of a heartbeat before silence. A warning. A feeling of certainty: They are Coming and they Will Not Rest. They cannot be beaten._

A thought, not her own: _Why will nobody listen to me?_

_~~~~_

****Garrus** **

He let the message play twice. Weaver watched the flickering holo over his shoulder, dumbstruck as Shepard detailed her injuries, confessed that she was so very alone, and then… she name dropped Aria.

It was almost funny. Her last words to fall on sentient ears were a “fuck you” to Aria. Or at least they would have been, but they weren’t her last words, couldn’t be because...

“She’s not dead.”

“Vakarian…” Weaver had warning in hir voice, and something like pity. “I don’t know what…”

A slumbering beast shuddered awake in Garrus’ gut. It growled at him, and made one thing very clear. His mate was in danger. Horrible, terrible danger, and all Weaver could do was stumble through platitudes.

He wanted to unleash the beast on Weaver, but instead he took a deep breath.

His voice sounded far away, like someone else was talking, using his vocal chords without his consent. “She’s not dead. Or at least she didn’t die right after sending this.” The faraway voice was cold, certain. Sounded like C-Sec, felt like a memory. “Look...” Garrus pulled up the metadata and timestamps to show Weaver, fingers numb and steady as they danced on the haptics. The date of the recording was months ago, during Shepard’s gun running mission… back even before they’d slept together that first time.

Weaver looked over the data. “She said she was going to delete the message if she survived… She obviously didn’t.” Garrus looked at hir, and Weaver shook hir head quickly. “Delete it, I mean.”

“That head injury looks familiar... ” Garrus muttered to himself. “From after her gun run, months ago.”

“Yeah, I remember. She was beat to hell. Seems like she’s always beat to hell…” Weaver’s voice faded.

He watched the video again. Her face… that bruise across her forehead and under her eyes had just begun to fade that night on the rooftop shooting range… the way she talked about her biotics as if she couldn’t quite believe there was a problem.

The certainty that she was not dead was unfounded, and his rational mind thought it might just be shock, but he felt so __sure__ \-- he could feel it in his gut, as the humans said. He detached from the message, from Shepard’s face filling the frame of the holo-vid and from her gallows humor and from that look in her eyes he’d never seen before, a look that spoke of… giving up.

But she hadn’t given up then. She’d come back to Omega and healed, and had either forgotten about the message or decided not to delete it. He was undecided because either of those things would be just like her...

He unfocused his desires, his need for her to still be alive, and thought about the facts.

She left Omega ( _and him_ , he tried not to add) in a panic, and deleted her comm address. The message was clearly not attached to _that_ comm address, so she’d used another. While he thought, he ran a few searches on the address he’d received the message from across the extranet. Nothing-- no identity attached to it, no data traffic except that one message... She might as well have been a ghost reaching out to him from beyond the grave.

What else? She was working on a project that was bigger than Omega, possibly Terminus-systems wide in scope. Knowing Shepard, it would have to involve slavery to catch and hold her interest. But, she had connections to Specters-- __former Specters__ which could point her in the direction of the Council and Citadel space. That didn’t really tell him which direction to look. But one thing he did know based on that disastrous dinner with the Butler family, which her dead man’s vid had just _explicitly_ confirmed and reinforced was that she had a connection to… __her__.

“I’m going to talk to Aria.”

“Yeah… makes sense.” Weaver had propped hirself up against a console and was studying him thoughtfully, as if deciding whether to buy into the premise that Shepard was not dead, or the more likely reality that the boss was obsessed and had gone off the deep end. “What’s with that ‘fuck you’ at the end there?”

Garrus didn’t say anything, just studied the video and shook his head in a way that could have meant _I don’t know_ just as easily as _I’m not at liberty to say._ Weaver shrugged.

Something kept snagging his attention. Shepard had recorded herself out in the depths of space, when she thought she might die. She’d made the vid and set it to send to __him__ should her lifesigns fail. A small part of him roared with triumph that he was where her mind went to when she was alone and ostensibly terrified and staring down her own death-- though that pain-dazed expression on her face didn’t show fear so much as resignation. That she thought of him in that moment made him… not happy… but proud. Honored perhaps, and more than a little possessive.

And _that_ made him feel a little sick.

“Send this to Krul, ask him if he can trace the signal. She wasn’t using the comm address we all have for her, but it had to get here somehow.”

 _ _Because she deleted it. She fucking deleted it.__ “And don’t __tell__ anyone else about this. As far as they know, Shepard is still taking one of her vacations.”

“Got it, boss,” Weaver tossed him a lazy salute, but Garrus was already halfway out the blast doors.

Garrus tried to get into Afterlife via the VIP room, but they had changed the password. He had to wait in line like everyone else, trying not to strangle the two drunk humans behind him as they whited about how long the line was, jostling him every so often. Their turian friend kept trying to shush them, and Garrus felt eyes on his back. He was not dressed for the club, and his fringe was up. The turian kept shooting him glances, but never long enough for Garrus to catch his eye, which could have ended up in a brawl.

Instead of committing murder, he passed the time by editing out the names that Shepard had dropped in her recording. The sounds of Weaver, Sensat, Krul, Vakarian all became garbled static, the image scrambled just long enough to so no one would even be able to read her lips.

She had been careless to use names, though he could see how she might make such an oversight, given the concussion and the exsanguination.

Finally, finally he was in. Down the long, familiar hall of flames. Garrus didn’t get the flames, not really. From what he’d gathered, Asari and humans shared similar visions about life after death being somewhere hot and below ground and probably on fire. Garrus had his doubts. He’d begun to expect that universal afterlife was probably a shity bar he’d be trapped in, trying to get information, trying to get out, trying to order a damn drink. Aria had done well with the naming.

More turian eyes turned to watch Garrus as he stalked across the nightclub floor. Aria’s guards were both turian tonight, and eyes snapped to Garrus as he stalked over. One guard, who had a short fringe and orange markings like Sensat’s, hefted her rifle, and Garrus lowered his head into his cowl. His lower larynx clicked dangerously as he spoke.

“I’ve got a message for Aria.” What had Nalah called Shepard that night? _Aria’s Girl._ It sounded like a title.

They stared each other down, blue and amber eyes locked. “Get in line,” the guard said, clearly unimpressed with Garrus’ alpha posturing and the low, dangerous noises that made the other turians in the bar give him a wide berth.

“She’s going to want to hear this. I’ve got some questions from Archangel. About ‘Aria’s Girl.’” He couldn’t keep the disgust from his voice.

The guard’s jaws slackened for a moment and then she straightened up, giving Garrus a once-over with new eyes. She muttered something into a radio, and thirty seconds later, Garrus was taking the steps up to Aria’s dais two at a time.

Aria sat on the couch, looking bored. The dias, for it seemed like it was more a throne room than a meeting space for a mob boss, was lit with neon and only slightly sheltered from the bone-vibrating bass, and was filled with guards of various races, as well as a few humans and asari in skin tight spandex, gyrating on raised platforms offset so they didn’t dominate the scene so much as accessorize. Garrus found his eyes sliding towards the human woman, and he felt a flare… not of interest or arousal, but of realization… something that had been half bothering them since he’d started this inter-species liaison... He felt no attraction to those soft, undulating bodies that moved to entice and hypnotize.

He didn’t want humans. He wanted Shepard.

“Another Citadel washout, come to pay his respects,” Aria said. Each syllable dropped from Aria’s mouth like a stone. She set her drink aside, smirking as she followed his gaze toward the dancers. “You look C-Sec. If you came to eye-fuck the dancers, there’s more at the bar.”

So, Aria didn’t know Archangel by sight. That surprised him. She was also going to let him be the one to bring up Shepard.

“Where’s Shepard?” The turian guard shifted at the low hint of danger in his subvocals, but Aria seemed unfazed.

“I don’t sell out my people to just anyone, turian. What’s your name?”

Her people? Shepard did not belong to this asari, this ancient Omega puppetmaster... Garrus wasn’t going to play. The batarian at her side stepped in his way as Garrus took a snarling step forward.

Instead of giving his name, he towered around the batarain, who stuck a pistol in his gut and grinned at him. The guy stank, but Garrus ignored him as best he could, going still. “I have a vid you’ll want to see,” he said around the guard. “Call off your varren-dung and I’ll show you.”

His visor immediately flashed warning of a hack attempt, and he smiled, and stood perfectly still with the gun muzzle pressed to his gut. The connection was local, which was nice because he had a neat little program that turned local hacking attempts back on the perp in the form of a systems overload. Somewhere nearby, though not in sight, there was a sound of electronics frying and someone yelped, followed by the smell of burning flesh and fried silicone.

“You’ll have to do better than that, Aria,” he said. “Shepard is in trouble, and I’m going after her. I need your help.”

Aria leaned back as she studied him, something like recognition flaring in her eyes. “I see,” she said, and with a careless wave, dismissed the guards. They pistol was pulled from his gut, and the batarian retreated with the others. Aria gestured for Garrus to sit. He refused, instead bringing up the video of Shepard and letting it play from his omnitool.

“What is this?” She said over the recording.

“Shepard. Received an hour ago, but it was recorded months prior.”

Garrus watched Aria as the video played out, eyes narrowing as recording stuttered over the names that Garrus had hastily edited out. Other than that, Aria’s face went still as stone, but her eyes grew bright and hard at the end.

“ _And Aria?”_ Shepard’s voice was weak, sounded like tin from speakers, but it was still unmistakably _her_ , that husky, slightly gruff voice that danced with amusement and irony with every word. Except now, addressing her adoptive guardian, she was deadly serious, and even a little sad. “ _Fuck you. _”__

Aria didn’t say anything for a moment. “So, Nym set up a dead man’s switch, and sent it to you. Which means I can only assume that you are the great Archangel. Not here to kill me over a little video, I hope? For your sake, that is.”

Garrus laughed, a soft, bitter sound, with an alarming flare to his subvocals that made him feel slightly unhinged. So Arai knew… something. That Shepard was working with him. Perhaps that they were… close. Some asari intuition thing, maybe. Some… mother’s intuition.

He wanted to take a cold shower to wash of the slime.

“No. By popular vote, you are still Omega’s chosen one. That worries me, but what worries me more is that Shepard wasted what could possibly have been her last breath on you. She didn’t die after this vid--”

“Obviously. Those injuries--”

Garrus cut over the asari. “Are old. But she’s missing now.”

Aria smiled. “She took off on you, didn’t she?”

Garrus didn’t say anything for a moment. “Five days ago.”

Aria kept watching him, even as he watched her. They were measuring each other, each trying to find cracks in the other’s defenses.

“You seem to be suffering under the delusion that Shepard tells me anything.” The bitterness in her voice surprised Garrus, and he found a crack, pushed.

“But you see her.” It wasn’t a question.

“Last time, I gave her some data.” “How long ago? What was the data about?” “Seven days ago. I don’t know what the data was. It was encrypted.” She was lying, at least about the not knowing. Garrus remember their last night together, the night he realized he loved her, the night before disaster, when she’d come out of Krul’s server room looking exhausted. If she had encrypted data it would have ended up with Krul.

Another lead. He let it drop.

“And you have no idea where she went?” “What makes you think she’s alive?”

“What makes you think she’s dead?” Aria didn't say anything and after a moment he went on. “She’s been planning to leave for a few weeks now. When she left, she deleted her comm address. There could be any number of reasons a dead man’s switch gets flipped-- she could have been incapacitated. Her omnitool could have failed. She could have lost the arm.”

Aria huffed. “I can’t help you, Archangel.” She looked almost sad. “What do you want? Resources? Credits?”

Garrus shook his head. “I want to know why…”

Aria laughed. “Why, what? Why--”

“I’ve seen her scars.”

“Oh, goddess.” Aria’s smile made his stomach lurch, and he felt his fringe rise and a low growl escaped before he could stop it. Aria T’loak did not have a nice smile. “A turian, come to lecture me about humanity. This galaxy has become very strange in the last fifty years. But, let’s back up here. You _care_ for her.”

Garrus’ mandibles flared wide. “More than you ever did.”

“What did she tell you about me?” Aria stood up and walked to the other end of the dias. “I abused her? Tortured her? Hated her. I __saved__ her. Do you know how many times she’s stood in that exact same spot you stand now? She runs, but she always comes back.” “She didn’t tell me a damn thing. She didn’t have to.”

Aria laughed again, and turned to him. “You find her, Archangel. Ask her how she came to be on Omega. Ask her what I’ve done for her, how lost she would have been without me, dead or worse. You know, we were close once.” She actually sounded sad for a moment… but that moment passed and she smiled again. “But one must keep up with the times.”

“You’ve been a real help, Aria.”

“So have you, Archangel.”

“Is this going to be a problem?” “On the contrary, keep up the good work. Just… stay out of my way.”

Garrus left Afterlife really wanting that cold shower. It was wrong to prod and poke at Shepard’s history, but she’d left him no alternatives. He needed to find her. Besides, at least now he’d met Aria and had taken her measure himself and started to perhaps understand, just a little.

Shepard been like a scared and dangerous animal he was trying to tame by sitting very still. He gained her trust by not probing, not asking questions, not making any sudden moves to scare her off. But perhaps he should have gone the route of total war, burned her defenses to the ground when he’d first encountered them.

It might have saved him the months of care and patience, and now the digging, finding out the thing he’d never really wanted to know. He felt slimy. Unclean.

And he very badly wanted to kill Aria.

Krul was waiting for him in the server room.

Garrus peered around a rope of cables and wires hung like deranged vines in some electronic jungle. Monitors ran algorithms he couldn’t begin to understand, probably because a lot of it was in base ten, and damn if if humans and Batarians didn’t make things complicated. The two races had more in common than they thought. You could tell a lot about a people by how they did math.

Before Garrus could say anything, Krul’s voice ground out from behind a server rack.

“Weaver says Shepard is in trouble. You want to know what kind of trouble.”

Garrus made a noise of assent and glanced at Weaver, who shrugged.

“Collectors” the Batarian said simply.

Garrus stared at Krul, who stared back, his four eyes black and unreadable as Ripper’s smile when he made a kill.

Krul pulled up his omnitool and a small projection sprang up, streaming data. “I have data from Shepard. It is from an independent project she’s been working on for months, since her initial return to Omega, just before you yourself arrived here. Collectors are taking human colonies.”

“Why would a batarian care about human colonies?” Garrus’ head tilted to the side, studying Krul as if he had never seen him before.

“I do not truly care. I was helping Shepard. But when they run out of humans, which is the next race they will chose to threaten? I do not see race as a barrier for concern.”

Krul wasn’t saying everything he knew-- smart, given the nature of “independent projects.” Garrus could sense it, his C-Sec training taking over. His mind slipped back to to the night over a local week ago, when Shepard had come into Base looking exhausted, had vanished upstairs for and ten minutes lated Garrus found her slipping out of Krul’s server den with the smell of secrets on her.

Could the Collectors be what she’d been talking about that night, the night she’d said something bigger was coming? His brain had been muddled with the pain of recent injuries and failure, and the need for sex, the need for _Shepard _,__ and it hadn’t struck him that she could have been talking about something on a Galactic scale, something like Collectors… or Reapers.

Now he felt like a fool for being so distracted by his obsession with Shepard, his need for her body on his, her smile, directed at him that he hadn’t been listening beyond the fear that she would leave… not cluing into _why _..__.

“I’d like a copy of that data.” “Very well, but it will not tell you where she has gone. Only where the Collectors have been.”

“And you don’t know anything? She hasn’t told you anything besides that she’s hunting galactic boogeymen?”

“Shepard is Shepard. She told me nothing else.”

“Fine,” Garrus said. “I’m breaking into her hanger. You're coming with me.”

Twenty minutes later, Krul, Sensat, and Weaver met him on the roof of Shepard’s building. Broken bottles littered one edge, and a few heatsinks scattered across the tarmac surface. Garrus hardly glanced at the detritus as he moved to the entrance and studied the lock. It was going to take more than a hacking module and clever code to get in here-- the whole thing was rigged to an alarm system, and would indiscriminately fry electronics if he took a misstep. This was not an out of the box security system.

Garrus’ mandibles clicked irritably. It wasn’t insurmountable, but it was going to take a while to figure out the layout of the security, if it could be overridden, or if he had to break the whole system…

Krul elbowed him out of the way, and Garrus snapped. “Watch it-- Krul…” but he stopped, mouth slightly ajar as Krul keyed in a series of codes, and Garrus heard thick tumblers and mag seals release on the door.

Weaver and Sensat exchanged mystified glances.

Krul looked between them. “What?” He said.

“You just… knew the codes?” How could Krul know the way into Sheppard's place? Why would he...

“I set up the whole system.”

Weaver made an “ohhh” sound, and then shrugged and pushed onward into the stairwell and the hallway beyond.

Krul followed, stopping at each security check to disable the systems.

“So, this begs the question. How do you know Shepard?”

“We go back.” Krul keyed in the password for the final door, and it slid open on Shepard’s hangar.

“What are we looking for, boss?” Weaver said from behind him. Garrus had to wrench his thoughts away from Krul for a moment and focus. What __were__ they looking for?

“A terminal. Any sign of packing or preparation. Vacation brochures to exotic places. Anything that might tell us where she’s gone.”

The apartment had a still, eerie quality to it, as if nothing had been disturbed for some time. It was cleaner than the last time he’d been here-- things seemed to have been put away. His eyes dragged over to the sagging couch along one wall where they had… where he’d….

“Woah, Shepard’s got _fish_!” Weaver was peering into the tank. “Uh… some of ‘em are dead fish. Damn, she must have left in a hurry. Doesn't look like anyone’s taking care of ‘em.”

Krul shuffled over to the stairs. “Terminal’s up here,” he muttered.

“Stay down here,” he told Sensat and Weaver, and followed Krul up into the loft.

A wall of plants concealed the loft from view, and they left the little sleeping area with a fresh, earthy smell that Garrus hadn’t encountered in a long time-- the smell reminded him of Cipritine in spring. His nostrils twitched, and he caught another smell, the smell of __her.__ Faint, but certain. The mellow, sweet soap she favored, the smell of her hair and the scent that was just _Shepard _.__

There was a low mattress, made up carefully with bedding, half a dozen pillows. A crate next to the bed held a lamp and a white and red kit that looked intimately familiar. It was the first aid kit where Shepard kept her adrenaline shots, antihistamines, and the ointment that he rubbed on the welts he left in the wake of his talons. The whole space looked prepared, like… she was expecting company.

Him.

And then there was the terminal, and a little holoprojector on a desk by the bed.

Garrus picked up the projector and leaned against the wall opposite the plants, fiddling with the device as Krul hacked the terminal.

“How far back do you and Shepard go, then?”

“Twenty years.”

Garrus blinked. He wasn’t sure exactly how old Shepard was, but based on his research on human lifespans, she seemed to be in her early thirties-- same as him. “So she was ten?”

“She used to steal from my chop shop. I caught her-- but when I realized who she was, I decided I’d rather have her as a friend than a bit of paste on the floor.”

“Who she was? You mean her connection to Aria?”

Krul nodded. “Tried to teach her a bit, but she was never interested in electronics. Too busy with biotics and such.”

“But you stayed friends?”

“We were useful to each other. People didn’t bother me because they assumed I was under Aria’s protection. In a way, I was. And in turn, I gave her a safe place to crash when things got tough with the Queen.”

“I suppose…”

There was a clunk as Krull turned from the computer and fixed him with a deadpan stare. “Look, Archangel. Shepard likes me because I keep her secrets, and I keep secrets because I simply don’t care about varren shit. The only reason you’re getting my help is because, like you, I think she’s in some deep trouble and needs your help. Got it?”

He got it. Sort of… Krul had known Shepard since she was a __child?__ It made no __sense--__ She trusted this man… this crusty, bad tempered Batarian, more than-- well __him__ , for one.

The console chirped. “I’m in.” Krul had been picking away at different programs as they spoke, and now he had what looked like a list of network addresses and timestamps. “Give me a date range for the--” Krul stopped, and Garrus went to peer over his shoulder.

“What, what is it?”

Garrus skimmed a series of messages…

_Three headed dog on Presrop. Relay to hell... When and where do we meet?_

And the reply: _Freedom’s Progress. Collector attack... Investigate… Further instructions and operative contact to follow._

“Fucking Cerberus.” The venom in Krul’s voice was another level beyond what Garrus was used to from the man. “Cerberus! How could she… Bitch. She’s worse than her asari bitch mother.”

Krul’s fist balled up, Garrus grabbed his collar and slammed him off the rickety metal chair and into the wall. The projector he’d been holding bounced to the floor and clicked on, points of light spraying over the the tiny loft room. Garrus growled in Krul’s face.

“What do you mean, Cerberus?”

Cerberus, the people who’d been doing sick mind control experiments with rachni and the Thorian and…

“She’s working for them! Look at the transcripts. She’s got orders. She’s a fucking Cerberus operative.”

Krul wrenched himself from Garrus’ grip and threw himself across the room, out of the projector spotlight. For a moment, Garrus was distracted by the map as the projection landed on the far wall-- currently upside down. He picked up the projector and righted it carefully. Data, like pins in a broad spread across the Terminus Systems-- population numbers, threat levels, postmortems on colonies that looked like they had been totally abandoned. It looked like… detective work. Like how he used to work, when he was trying to figure out Saren’s game-- though maybe she was a bit more methodical, and slightly less obsessive. Just as paranoid, though.

He hadn’t tried to fit all the pieces together just yet, but now he had enough to try and make a vague shape. Collectors, Cerberus… and the Omega 3 Relay? She’d mentioned Cerberus just once, when he’d been here before, digging through her extensive collection of mods and found that biotic stun whip.

She must have gone to Freedom’s Progress, but then the correspondence stopped five days ago. That mean either that she’d joined with them or cut off communication at that point. Five days… and on the fifth, her dead man’s switch had triggered. But there was other data coming through, as well. “Look, Krul,” he said, eyes locked on the computer now. “She’d been sending data back, bits at a time.”

According to the data she’d been sending to herself, she was on Lazarus Station, in deep space, near that comm buoy her vid had come from. Estimation of numbers, assessment of defences, observation on personnel, a psych dossier Cerberus had made for her, and names of agents she’d met… and a list of medical stats, and... procedures

“She’s using them.” Garrus said faintly. L5 implant. Neural regen therapy, upgrades to other cybernetics she’d had, apparently for years.

She was going to have more scars.

“She’s still Cerberus…” Garrus thought he saw a vein flicker in Krul’s temple.

Garrus shook his head. “If she’s dead, I need vengeance. If she’s alive…” If she was alive, then what? He should be furious at her for taking precious time away from their work on Omega, and broken hearted at her blatant abandonment but he just couldn’t bring himself to care. “He just wanted Shepard back. “If she’s alive… we’ll see.”

Garrus made a copy of the data and ushered Krul downstairs. “I want this place locked up tighter than a volus’ suit, got it?” Krul grunted, clearly going nonverbal for the duration. Garrus ignored the fury radiating off of him and turned to Sensat and Weaver. The four of them stood in the hollow space of Shepard’s hangar, voices echoing oddly.

“Are we going to find Shepard, boss?”

“I am. This isn’t an Archangel operation.”

“It could be a trap. I’m not letting you walk into a trap alone.” Sensat had her arms wrapped tight around her narrow waist in a defensive posture, jutting her chin forward in a challenge, and he could see a hundred scenarios running through her mind, each more treacherous than the last. It made his chest swell a little, to have her on his side, always looking at the worst case scenarios.

“I’m going too,” Weaver said, hands on hir hips. . Sensat and Garrus both looked at Weaver. “What?” Ze looked between them. In the gloom of the hanger ze seemed to take up more space than usual. Weaver was built like a boulder, short and buff, but now ze seemd incredibly solid, dependable. “I like Shepard, okay?” Sensat sighed, and Garrus nodded slowly.

“You coming, Krul?” Garrus didn’t feel like he was in a position to command the Batarian to do anything except maybe not kill Shepard when they found her. Whatever his issue was with Cerberus (and Garrus could think of a few… dozen) it was probably justified.

Krul just grunted, and kept typing on his omnitool.

He addressed them all now. “It’s high risk for a slim chance. Shepard could already be dead. She could have signed on with Cerberus. She could have been working for Cerberus all along.”

“Or she could be trapped there, and need an out. This is Cerberus. We’ve all crossed paths with them once or twice, right? We know what these fuckers are capable of. That’s why you’ll be taking us along.” Weaver looked pleased with hir logic. “So, what’s the plan?”

“The plan,” Garrus said, “Is to take the _Veritas_ to a place called Lazarus Station… Someone call the Professor, see if he’s interested in making a housecall.”

 

****Shepard** **

_Eden Prime was beautiful. It reminded her of Mindoir. Lush, jagged hills silhouetted against a creamy orange sky. This was air she could breathe. Not recycled or poisoned or touched by a couple million other lungs before it got to her._

_It was lovely and she wanted to run into the green, find some quiet place by a body of water and forget everything that was happening to her._

_But she had a job to do. A sense of duty, of rightness and forward momentum overwhelmed her. She had a new sense of will._

_She moved out with her squad, humans, into a spaceport, deserted._

_Except for the body._

_Turian._

_The colors were overbright. Red armor, brown plates, white clan markings, blue blood._

_The back of his head was missing, pieces of fringe scattered like broken ceramic, brain and blood oozing on the tarmac._

_Shepard swallowed hard and stepped over the body, trying not to look at the detritus._

_Part of her screamed that this was wrong. Nihilus was dead and she should not be here. She should be on a barren moon at the ass end of the Terminus, setting demo charges with her crack team of ex slaves and asari mercs. She should be getting the news. She should be alone in the Plain Jane, sobbing. She should be heading to a memorial service on the Citadel. She should be getting kicked out of Specter training._

_She shouldn’t be hunting Prothean relics with two Alliance commandos._

_But she couldn’t stop. She had a job to do._

_She had to secure the beacon. Shepard took point and her two human squad mates moved to flank her and they took out geth and disarmed bombs, fought off blue-glowing zombies with circuitry wrong-wired and so alien, and Shepard was numb as she stared the beacon. As she stared at herself, staring at the beacon._

_The moment was a hall of mirrors, bouncing reflections of what could be, down into the toothy mawed abyss of possible realities._

_Her objective. She’d done it, but at cost. Nihlus, dead._

_It didn’t hurt as much as it had the first time. It almost didn’t hurt at all._

_The beacon was on and pulsing with light, despite not being connected to any sort of power grid. Perhaps it ran on a battery. She radioed it in. One of her squad mates approached the weird, pulsing pillar and with the instinct of a decade honed by intensive commando training and command, honed by vengeance and survival in the Terminus, she dove at him, cast him aside even as the thing grabbed her up and shot fire through every nerve._

_It screamed a message at her, things she couldn’t possibly hope to understand._

_Fire and blood. Four eyes. Chitin and fury. Armageddon._

_Husks, not dead but not alive, nervous systems replaced by circuits, genetic code rewritten, replaced by not-binary, by quantum code… by…_

_She counted backwards from ten. Counted through the barrage of images and the sound of the universe ripping itself apart and trying to slam itself back together at what felt like the molecular level, found solace in the predictability of numbers…._

_Ten… a needle descends towards and eye._

_Nine… thirty billion voices scream in unison. An atom splits._

_Eight… something moans in the vacuum of space. It makes no noise but rattles the very fabric of time._

_Seven… it is inevitable._

_Six… gunfire._

_Five… Wake up, Captain. Shepard, do you hear me? Get out of that bed now._

_Four… Your scars aren’t healed, but I need you to get moving._

_Three… This facility is under attack. Taylor is coming to meet you… get up!_

_Two… More gunfire._

_One…_

~~~

The first thing she noticed was not pain, but the lack of it. It was nothing but a mist pressing against a wall of a cocktail of really high grade pharmaceuticals. Shepard could see the pain that by rights belonged to her pressing on the glass, swirling on mysterious currents, but couldn't feel it.

She opened her eyes.

The next thing she noticed was that she couldn’t see very well.

At that, she sat bolt upright, clutching at her face, the back of her neck… she felt a cold breeze puff across to top of her head as a door opened and she realized she had no hair. They’d shaved her down the the scalp.

That was going to be a bitch to grow back out.

A glance down at her arm showed the angry orange glow of cybernetics under precise, half opened scars. She wasn’t bleeding. It was like she’d been disassembled and sewn back together along new seems, freshly ironed to set the creases just right. She just wasn’t done setting yet.

Somehow the orange scars didn’t bother her, though Shepard had a creeping suspicion that they __should.__ She brushed her cheek, and found the scars curved around her temple, down her jaw. There were a few lines down her neck, and swirled around her arms, her torso, her thighs and calves.

Those would be the different bone and muscle weaves Cerberus had gifted her.

A patter of gunfire drew her from the investigation of her body, and she swung her legs over the side of the gurney, caged in by massive pieces of expensive medical equipment, and bare feet found the shock of a cold floor. Based on her limited vision, she surmised that this was not the room she’d gone to sleep in-- nor was it the room she was supposed to wake up in.

She stumbled the first few steps towards the door. Another breeze wafted through, and Shepard realized she wore a thin hospital gown, open at the back and secured by strings.

“Easy, Shepard.” She turned to follow the voice, felt a hand on her arm and saw a brown blur that resolved into Jacob Taylor after a moment’s concentration.

“I can’t… see,” she said, voice tight and cut with annoyance. “What’s going on? Where’s my gun? And… clothes. Clothes would be nice.”

“Miranda said your vision will improve by the minute. We’re under attack. Your gun is here.” Cold metal pressed into her hands, though shifting, blurry vision wasn’t going to make her a great soldier at the moment, but the weight of it made her feel a bit more centered, ready to walk half blind into… well… a firefight. Nihlus would have laughed at her sorry state. “We’ll get armor for you on the way-- the shuttle bay is past the armory.”

What kind of medical station had an armory? Oh, right, she was with Cerberus now.

“Shuttle bay?”

“We’re bugging out.”

“Who’s attacking?”

“The mechs, and what appears to be three soldiers. Pirates, by the read on their ship.”

“How many mechs?”

“Uh… all of them.”

Shepard cleared her throat.

“Three-dozen. Ten FENRIS. And two YRMs.” Shepard swore, stumbling forward, feeling like she was still dreaming. Was this still part of that twisted nightmare? A beacon and a dead turian she knew and didn’t know-- no, she definitely knew him. Nihlus. That was his name. Her friend, her mentor. An attack on a secret base wouldn’t be too out of the way after a dream like that. Anesthetics always gave her the weirdest fucking dreams, but that was another level.

And hey, maybe she was hallucinating.

Something dawned on her, and a thrill of anticipation arrowed down her spine. There was a _reason_ she'd signed up for this bullshit. “Hold up.”

“Shepard, Operative Lawson said not to use your biotics until--”

She ignored Jacob and closed her eyes, useless as they were. With a small shudder, anticipating pain, she let her nerves light up with biotic energy. Usually it was a rush, a full force unleashing of her biotic potential, but this time… there was no pain, and no rush. She opened herself up, just a trickle, and it was the playful light of plasma out of a viewport. She opened herself up more, to a flow from her core, and it was the light of a new dawn. Energy coursed down her spine and she let fire bloom over her body and blossom into her hand, like a blue flower. Delicate, perfectly controlled. Then she let the power die, abrupt as a lightswitch. The air was charged with residual energy, but she was not in pain.

She touched beneath her nose. That fine of control over biotics should have had her bleeding from both nostrils even before the nerve damage, but her fingers came away dry.

Shepard grinned. For a moment she felt still and calm, even in a hospital robe, even barefoot and half blind, even in the hands of Cerberus. She felt, for that moment of biotic perfection, like the still point around which all chaos turned.

“Lead the way, Taylor.”

“No more biotics,” he warned. She flapped her hands at him and he handed her some flip flops.

“You could bring me sandals, but no a pair of sweatpants?”

“They were already in the room,” he said as he steered her in the room.

“Huh,” she said. They were too big for her, and she flapped down the hall after her escort.

The mechs weren’t a problem when they faced them down by the handful. Shepard took cover when directed, and the little team of Cerberus soldiers and Jacob took out the mechs. It was when they were suddenly swarmed by ten that Shepard got nervous.

If she could just __see!__ She felt a slow but rising sense of terror, a lack of control so profound it was absurd. People always talked about fight or flight, but they often missed the third adrenal response in humans, which was to freeze in place and hope nobody noticed you.

If she could see, Shepard might have taken the “flight” option and just taken her own way out, ditching Cerberus then and there. She had her biotics back. She could make the rest of it up as she went.

But really she froze up as they marched through the corridor, trying to make sense of the blur of uniforms, distinguish colors, focusing enough to get a sense of where she was and what enemies they faced, but not enough to aim a gun. She pressed into cover as the team took out the renegade mechs. Someone was yelling about systems overrides and a back door-- and the bastards who had taken it down. Someone muttered about an inside job.

“We’ve got live ones! Turians!”

“The fuck? Turians?” One of the other Cerberus operatives said.

There was a whine and a whump as someone ahead of them screamed, and then the sound of mecs drowned out the rifle fire… but it sounded familiar in both the velocity of the shot and the slow rate of fire.

“That’s a Widow,” she said to no one in particular, almost dreamily. “One shot, one kill, and they knew there would be YMIRs. Whoever’s doing this raid is not fucking around.”

There was general panic, grumbling, and shouting of orders, and Shepard felt like she was floating. Whatever drugs they’d given her, they were keeping more than pain at bay.

“At least two… and a human. And a Salarian?”

“They blew a hole in the bulkhead and boarded in D Wing!”

Jacob’s voice sounded at her shoulder, and a strong hand gripped her arm. She wished he wouldn’t.

“Shepard, I’m going to escort you to the armory…”

She jerked her arm away. “Hands off, Taylor,” she snapped, and took cover at the juncture of a corridor.

She heard him grumble what might have been an apology but she ignored her escort and peered around the corner, willing her eyes to focus on things more than three feet in front of her nose. Jacob was pointing down the corridor opposite them, but in the juncture, leaning out from cover was a familiar set of blue and silver armor.

She squinted.

“Goddess,” she breathed. She was hallucinating. She’d gone completely mad in the wake of her surgeries. One too many implants and her mind was broken, just fulfilling wishes and making things up rather than dealing with whatever horrible reality was actually unfolding around her. Maybe she’d been shot. Maybe she hadn’t even woken up. Maybe she wasn’t going to. “Taylor... describe what you see.”

Jacob was nothing if not obedient. “Two turians. One in blue and silver armor, the other in a sort of green and black? And a human in orange. All wearing helmets.”

“Are there any symbols on the armor?”

“They’re not Blue Suns or Ec--”

“ _ _Symbols__ , Jacob.”

“A little white a shape?” Jacob sounded uncertain, but at least he was obedient. “Archangel,” she breathed. It was real. Vakarian was here, tearing apart Lazarus station. For __her,__ she could only assume. He’d always been a suicidal idiot, but this was a new development. Suicidal for her. Couldn’t have that. How and why Archangel were there went out the window. Right now she needed them not to die, and not to… shoot her. Or any more Cerberus people either, as that would probably not be a mark in Cerberus’ good books.

She stood up, even as Jacob made a grab for her. She lurched as she broke his grip with an automatic twist of her hand and she felt bone crunch in his finger and he yelped. She stumbled into the corridor, flip-flops smacking the floor. She held out her arms and let the sweet rush of biotics electrify her nerves and she took a step forward, and for a moment she was a biotic god. Stasis had always given her trouble, but maybe she could twist it into some sort of barrier. Keep things from going in, or going out. The biotic bubble stretched around her, bullets pinking off until she released the energy around her in a shockwave that blasted the Cerberus team backwards.

And then she stumbled forward.

Jacob was screaming a ceasefire. The guns stopped, and a turian-shaped helmet peered around cover. A second later, the figure unfolded itself and closed the distance between them in two massive strides, a predator closing in on prey. She froze. The figure was less blurry now, and loomed over her in massive and intensely familiar blue and sliver armor.

She was sure who it was, even before the helmet came off and clattered to the floor.

She was afraid of what she was going to see in that lovely, harsh face. She expected anger, rage. Accusation or disgust. That, she could handle. But instead she just saw the bold blue clan markings, blue eyes honed on her, brown plates drawn down and mouth slightly ajar, mandibles fluttering...

“Vakarian,” she breathed, and fell to her knees.

He followed her down to sit on his heels, ice-shot blue eyes darting between hers in a rapid study. What did he __see__?

“Vakarian, I'm so sorry.”

“Garrus.” His chest was heaving, like he had just run a great distance.

“What?” Was her translator working properly? What was a Garrus?

“My name is Garrus.”

She took a ragged breath, suddenly feeling like the room had depressurized. She didn't understand. “Garrus?”

“It’s only fair, Shepard…”

“Nym,” she said quickly, shaking her head just slightly, not breaking eye contact. It was like they were picking up a conversation they’d left just moments before, like some rude intrusion had interrupted them but had been summarily dealt with, and now they could continue with the really important stuff, and never mind the growing crowd of commandos or that her bare ass was hanging out on display.

He smiled. It was the purest thing she'd ever seen, and she’d once met a baby Krogan.

“I didn't think I'd ever see you again,” he whispered, subvocal flaring. They weren’t touching, but she felt the warm expel of his breath on her cheek.

“I didn’t think you’d ever want to.”

“Shepard,” he said, then closed his eyes, took a deep breath. “Nym,” he corrected. He opened his eyes. “Did you check your messages?” He sounded annoyed, like he was reminding her to eat, or check her shields or...

Stupid… She shook her head. “I’m sorry,” she said again. He didn’t say anything. She didn’t explain further. She didn’t have to. He would forgive her, or he wouldn’t. He was __here.__ He was here, and his name was Garrus.

“Garrus,” she said, and that sunlit smile happened again. It was a magic word, his name, to make him smile like that. “How did you find me?”

Shepard was vaguely aware of three two armored figures moving around them to stand between them and the press of Cerberus soldiers trying to move in. Sensat, Weaver, and…. Mordin?

“I checked my messages.”

“What?”

“Dead Man’s switch. Helps to have a batarian tech genius around to trace the signal.”

“Oh…” she breathed. _Oh _…__ of all her contingencies, all her escape routes… it was that damn message which had betrayed her. But he was __here.__ Maybe it wasn’t… But it was. She had to ask. “I forgot about that...” With everything else that had been going on, she really __had__ forgotten.

“I’m very glad you did.”

“What about… _her_ …”

“I don’t care.”

“You don’t think I’ve been spying on you, or selling you out… or… ”

“No,” he said.

“Because I haven’t.”

“I know. You’d make a terrible spy.” It wasn’t exactly true. She’d been sending Cerberus data back to herself on Omega bits at a time, piggybacked on the minimal outgoing signals from the station. Mostly people here communicated by tightbeam, but every so often they sent messages off via comm buoy, and away her data slipped with it. She might be mostly hopeless, but Krull had managed to teach her a few things about communications.

She laughed, and felt a scar pull tight across her face.

His smile snapped into a frown.

“Did they do this to you?” He growled, low in his chest, and reached out, but froze suddenly, as if afraid to to touch her. She held his gaze, and after a moment he dropped a talon to her cheek traced one perfect orange scar. She held still, tried not to flinch. She hated that particular caress, a brush across her cheek, but coming from him… coming from a place of concern and not coercion….

“Oh… yeah, they did. Upgrades. I have bionic eyes now. Everything’s still a little blurry, but they said that should clear up in another day or two. Your little rescue attempt interrupted the healing process.” He started to pull away and she caught his hand in hers, pressing it to her cheek and caught his eye again.

“But look.” She raised her other hand, and smiled. Blue fire bloomed in her fist, and the glow spread slowly down her arm, just as she’d done upon waking up. The control was still there, more powerful, even finer than it had been just minutes before. She could probably perform biotic surgery with an L5. She could probably __reave.__

“I saw your little stunt before. You’re amazing. Amazing.” He sounded so… relieved. She could cry. Forget could, she was crying. A few tears leaked from the corner of her eyes, and he swept them away with the carefully bent knuckle of his thumb. “L5 now? I saw your data.” He coughed, apologetic. So that’s how he’d found her... a message saying she was dead wouldn’t __quite__ be enough to lead him to Lazarus station.

“You been stalking me, Vakarian?”

“You can take the turian out of C-Sec…” he breathed and pulled her into an abrupt hug against his armor. She let her biotics die and leaned into him, head resting on the keel of cold metal on his chest as his hand slid down her back, and froze as he found the opening of her hospital gown at the small of her back.

“Yeah, my ass has literally been hanging out this whole time,” she whispered, trying not to laugh. Of all the things she’d just faced, partial nudity seemed like the least of it. “Really, I’ll take any chance to moon Cerberus.” Even if she __was__ Cerberus.

“Can we get some clothes over here?” He sounded scandalized on her behalf, irritated, and __protective,__ which caused her heart to stutter. Weaver and Sensat stood stalwart in some kind of shield between them and the contingent of Cerberus soldiers in an attempt at privacy.

His eyes dropped back to hers, and he lowered his forehead to rest against hers. Slowly, his eyes closed, and he started to purr.

“Don’t you _ever_ scare me like that again,” he whispered. It was a command, one she would not be able to obey… but for now…

“I’m sorry,” she whispered again.

She heard Jacob from somewhere far away. “So we’re __not__ under attack? Who the fuck are you guys?”

Mordin peered out from around Sensat at the Cerberus commandos. “Rescue operation,” he said in a clipped, efficient voice. “Perhaps premature, given patient’s current state. Still, biotics seem to be functioning optimally. Better than! Would like to examine patient… when there’s time.” Weaver started laughing as Jacob marched forward, and then Shepard pulled herself away from Vakarian-- from Garrus, to prevent them all from being tossed out an airlock.

~~~

A few minutes later they were installed into a suite of recovery rooms, a doctor checked Shepard over and gave the O.K. for her to change into more humanizing attire.

“I don’t think we’re being kept prisoner,” she said to Garrus. “Probably. They’ve invested a lot in me. Wouldn’t want to piss me off by arresting my friends.”

Garrus sat in a chair, looking around uneasily. She took of the gown and Garrus averted his eyes.

“You can watch,” she said. “ _ _They__ are.” She pointed the one way observation windows along one wall, and the waved to the assholes behind it before pulling on the black and white sweats with the Cerberus emblem on one arm.

“So, this is Cerberus,” he murmured. He cast the opaque windows a dark look. “At least you __know__ they’re watching you.” There was no accusation in his voice, but she couldn't help the creeping guilt. He didn’t ask what she was doing here, or why, but she felt he probably deserved an explanation.

“Ever heard of the Collectors?”

Garrus’ head turned slowly from the windows to gaze at Shepard. “Krul told me about your project. What he knows, at least.”

“Bastard,” she hissed. Of course he'd rated on her to the boss.

“You know, he was a _little_ upset when he found out you were in bed with Cerberus. What’s up with the two of you, anyway? Seems like a lot of old history.”

“That’s exactly what it is.” Garrus didn’t say anything, just waited. Finally, she relented, each word making her feel more naked than when she’d shrugged out of the hospital gown. “I was a kid. He took care of me sometimes, when things were bad. When i got older, we’d work together occasionally. It helps to keep a savant in your arsenal, okay? He’d do all my security for me, back when I was fighting slavers. I got in touch with him again when I got back to Omega. Just before I met you.”

Garrus nodded. They couldn’t really talk freely here but there was so much… so much she wanted to say. So much she wanted to ask him. She was still treading gingerly, still afraid it was all a really nice dream, but she’d wake up and find that it was just that, along with the dreams of Nihlus’ body and that weird vision from a beacon on Eden Prime. After what she’d done, how she’d left things, Shepard was still shocked that he was __here,__ that he had __found her.__ That he’d wanted to find her.

She sat on the cot, feeling something akin to shock set in. Garrus offered his hand. She took it, tracing his talons around and around her fingers. Someone brought in food, and she attempted eating a bit, but only managed some crackers and applesauce. She felt like a child. Soon, the glass wall that had been keeping the fog of pain at bay seemed to be crumbling, and she called for more meds.

Mordin came in with the other doctors when she assured them that yes, he was actually her doctor after a fashion, and no, he was not a morally uptight idiot who might be a serucity risk. The doctors talked at her, and at Garrus for a while, but she couldn’t focus. Something about the interruption of an expedited healing process and how that affected scarring. She’d have those scars for life, though they would fade in time, with proper care and a “reduced stress” lifestyle, which made her laugh. Did the doctors have any idea that she’d been asked to go through the Omega 4 Relay?

The lines of orange light itched, and when the painkillers kicked in she couldn’t stay awake any longer.

Garrus growled the doctors out of the room when he noticed her slurring her speech.

“Sleep while you can,” he said when they were alone again. His voice was a quiet rumble, a comforting anchor. “I think they’re still figuring out what to do with us. I’ll be right here when you wake up.”

“Promise?” She managed through a mouth full of cotton.

“Promise.”

For a while, she slept, knowing Vakarian-- _Garrus_... was nearby.

She woke to the sound of Miranda Lawson yelling.

“--hundreds of thousands in damages, and a terabyte of corrupted data! And your ship took off, leaving you __here--__ ”

“Under my orders, to keep the peace. Unless you’d like a pissed off Batarian engineer with a grudge against your organization to come back and wipe the rest of your servers?” That was Garrus. Gods, his voice was sexy when he was being an asshole.

Wait, __Krul__ had been there?

Shepard opened her eyes, and after a few blinks, found that her vision had improved somewhat. Apparently she could have datafeeds plugged into her eyes now, if she wanted.

She sat up.

“Uh, hey Miranda.” The woman held herself stiff as a frozen pole, rounding on Shepard. “What’s this? Who are these people? Jacob has advised against putting them into custody, but you can’t just have thugs breaking in-- did you contact them?”

“Operative Lawson, this… uh...” People? Shepard paused and looked around. Weaver was there, grinning, Sensat leaned aggressively on a crate, scowling a turian scowl. Mordin was perusing a datapad, uninterested in the commotion. “This Is my team.”

Garrus cleared his throat, and Miranda’s perfect brows shot upward as her eyes snapped to him.

“Our team,” Shepard corrected, feeling a little thrill pass through her as Garrus put a hand on her shoulder and gave a squeeze. “Our team.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I guarantee you it's not the first time Shepard has mooned a bunch of commandos, and it's probably not going to be the last.


	20. Windows

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The only casualties in this chapter are a banana, and Shepard’s pride.  
> Also, no song lyrics for this chapter, but instead, an entire song: [Windows - Angel Olsen](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wayIPICOl6A)

**Somewhere on the fringe of the Horsehead Nebula, Lazarus Research Station**

**Garrus**

“Your crew is safe so long as Shepard says they are safe.”

Garrus stood in the observation room, hand on his hips. HIs eyes never left Shepard’s sleeping form through the viewing-side of the recovery room window. Miranda sat at a desk, looking so smug Garrus wanted to shake her. She smelled wrong. The whole of Lazarus Station smelled _wrong_ , like death and antiseptics and secrets.

Miranda didn’t seem to notice.

“Just like that?” He asked. Miranda stared at him blandly. Humans always seems to overlook the dangerous rumble of his subvocals. “We blow a hole in your freaky, deep space lab and hack your mecs, kill a couple mercs, destroy vital data and try to bust out your most valuable patient, and you’re telling me Cerberus doesn’t care? We’re free to leave with Shepard?”

Miranda sighed. “You say ‘Cerberus’ like we’re an organization with a single mind. We are a network, and I’m in charge of this station. As such, my primary concern is Captain Shepard’s well-being. You and your team are obviously vital to her, as she is to you, or you would not have risked such a spectacularly ill-advised rescue.”

Garrus laugh was a short, bitter bark that caused Miranda to lean back with narrowed eyes. Shepard was certainly being well-used, but her well-being? Miranda was unloading a lot of varren shit on him, and he had to smile and nod as he swallowed it, because to do anything else would put his squad at risk.

Weaver, Sensat, Mordin, and Garrus had all be questioned separately as Shepard slept. They were each lead into a bare room with metal chairs, the picture very much a stark prelude to torture, and Miranda drilled them on their stories as Jacob stood with a little squad of security officers. But instead of being hauled away to some Cerberus prison cell, Lawson had evidently corroborated that they were indeed part of Archangel, and come to the conclusion that they had simply come to bust out a comrade, and not to sabotage the mission. It had been a… _miscommunication._

A miscommunication… understatement of the cycle. Everything to do with Shepard was a miscommunication.

At least no one had been tortured or locked up, so the four of them held fast to the hope that they’d all be out of there once Shepard was given whatever tasks Cerberus had for her, and they could all bug and put Lazarus Station behind them. Now it was Garrus’ job to make sure that actually happened.

So, he played nice. Well, nicer than he could have been. Besides, something else caught his attention. “Why do you keep calling her Captain?”

“Captain Shepard is a Cerberus Operative,” she explained slowly. Garrus tore his eyes from Shepard’s sleeping form to drill into Miranda. She barely contained her smile, brimming with secrets. “She has an assignment, and will be outfitted accordingly with a ship and resources once she is done healing. Something that _you_ and your _team…_ ” Miranda Lawson’s mouth twisted in contempt, “interrupted with your unnecessary rescue. If we’d thought Shepard had such a dedicated following with the Archangel business, we would have simply extended an invitation.” She waved her hand in dismissal of the notion, and continued. “Shepard has a _mission._ One that you can assist with, or get out of the way.”

“Yes, a suicidal run through the Omega 4 Relay. Not sure how you sold that one to her, but we’re all stuck now, aren’t we?”

What was the human expression? Between a rock and a hard place? And it all could have been avoided if only he’d pushed her to be more open, or if he’d been more open himself. But of course, that could never have happened on Omega.

They both assumed so much, spoke their intentions so infrequently. That was going to have to change if they had any hope of a real relationship-- hope that had ballooned to the size of a sun when he’d seen her again in that stupid hospital gown with no hair on her head but with new, glowing scars. Glowing! The hope had ballooned for those sweet few moments, brightest as he said his name, wiped a tear from her cheek and then…. Cerberus. The hope was now collapsing into the inescapable and infinite pressure of a black hole.

He turned his eyes back to the window, to the small form that lay curled under the blanket in the room beyond it. All he could see was her face, sharp lines and full lips, brows drawn down in a look of focus even in her sleep. It was still strange to see her without hair. He knew humans changed their hair sometimes, but the lack of the spiraling reddish halo around her head was shocking… and yes… she was somehow even more beautiful.

The scars scared him, though. Not the scars themselves, of course. She had other scars across her body that he loved. The varren bite on her arm, the scar across her lip and chin, the pucker and dimple of bullet wound scars he could connect like constellations across her body, the crisscross of scars on her hands from years of CQC and the scar on her gut from where she’d been stabbed... Even the scars on the back of her neck, scars from implants and surgeries, he loved those too. The new scars were different though. They were bright and taught, and he wondered if she even knew everything that Cerberus had done to her body. They reminded him of the blue glow that Saren’s cybernetics had cast-- what they’d all assumed had been cybernetics, or geth technology.

Now Garrus knew better-- it had been Reaper technology and Saren had been indoctrinated.

Shepard’s glowing orange scars were not the same, but there was enough of an echo to let his imagination slip its leash and rush off in all sorts of horrible directions.

And… Nym’s body… it seemed that everyone else in the galaxy had a say in what happened to her body except for Nym herself--

“Are you even listening to me, Archangel?”

Garrus snapped his head back towards Lawson. “Sorry, I’ve got a limited tolerance for varren shit,” he said. He’d at least let Miranda think he was going to join Shepard on her new mission, in case it might encourage her to leak intel.

“It seems the two of you are… involved? She never mentioned you.”

“She wouldn’t have. Screwing an alien puts a black spot on your service record when singing up with a human supremacist group.”

What had she been _thinking_?

Survival. That’s what she’d been thinking. No doubt she had some sort of escape plan for Cerberus. She had one for everything else. He would have to trust her, or abandon her, and the latter was not an option.

Miranda offered him a stack of datapads. “I don’t care about Shepard’s personal life, I care about results. A team has been pulling together dossiers for possible crewmates. You know Shepard in ways we never could, and you know what we’re asking her to do. Do any of these stand out?”

The way she said it made his skin crawl.

She handed him a datapads from across the desk. He snached it and retreated to the one-way window so he could keep an eye on Shepard while he flipped through the first couple of dossiers: a Krogan warlord with a reputation for bad science, a thief, some mercenaries and ex alliance types, an asari justicar.... He’d need time to read them over, but he froze on the ninth dossier in, eyes narrowing in disbelief.

The name at the top was a familiar one… Tali'zorah vas Neema. A little picture sat in corner of the dossier: a quarian with a purple suit and faceplace, swirls of white on the thick fabric of her hood, and an abiding sense of… well… _energy_ that Tali had always radiated.

It was a punch in the black hole of his gut to see little quarian peering up at him from a datapad while he stood on a Cerberus base. Out of curiosity and a growing sense of dread, he flipped to the next dossier. It was Liara T’soni. He stared at the blue, freckled asari with creeping horror for a moment before opening the last dossier file. Garrus stared blankly at his own image, in C-Sec blue. He looked so much younger in that snapshot-- it had been taken from public C-Sec personnel databases the day he’d joined the force just about ten years ago, long before he’d met Fisher.

His young, foolish image stared at him, and Garrus looked up at Miranda in horror.

“What’s going on. What is this?”

“Just doing my research, _Officer_ Vakarian.” The human woman looked utterly content with herself. She’d played him… let him think she had no idea just _who_ he was beyond his relationship with Shepard. And yet... there was too much viable, _sensitive_ information in the datapads not to be _actual_ research.

“Don’t worry. You, Tali’zorah, and Doctor T’soni were already on the dossier list before you blasted a hole in the bulkhead and tried to rescue your girlfriend. Strange coincidences abound, it seems.”

Lawson was too pleased with herself. She knew too much, and Garrus’ mind reeled. It was too strange, _too_ much of a coincidence.

“I’m assuming this has something to do with Fisher,” he said slowly… and then finally... “Reapers?”

Miranda inclined her head, graceful and oh-so-smug.

“Reapers. We believe the Collectors are working for them.”

“Does Shepard know?”

“I do not believe she has connected the dots. Does she know that you used to be Fisher’s right hand turian?”

The use of his race before his gender was pronounced. It was clear Miranda saw him as a turian, as an _alien_ before anything else- male, a soldier, or Shepard’s lover.

“No,” he said. He read over the dossiers for his old shipmates, gleaning what he could. Tali was serving on a ship called the Neema, running all sorts of high risk missions. The latest had been Freedom’s Progress, to rescue a stranded Quarian comrade. She had escaped Cerberus surveillance as of a galactic standard week ago.

As for Liara… the asari had been in contact with Cerberus several times over the past two years, and was still investigating Protheans and their connection to the Reaper threat. Of all of them, Liara had possessed the most personal stake in the events that had unfolded while they were served on the Normandy-- namely her mother’s alliance with Saren and the Matriarch's subsequent death, and the direct connection that her Prothean research had to the Reapers. She also had the least to return to when Fisher had died… well, Liara and Alekno….

Garrus had never really figured out what had been going on between the three of them. He wondered if Kaiden had been in touch with Liara since Fisher’s death. He wondered… he wondered why Kaiden wasn’t on the dossier list, though it probably had something to do with Kaidan Alenko being Alliance to the bone.

“This is really fucked up,” Garrus said to no one in particular.

“I understand your unease, Officer Vakarian, but it’s all rather convenient. You’d proved rather difficult to track down-- Dr. T’soni had no idea of your whereabouts, or even if you were still alive. I dismissed it as coincidence when I saw your clan tattoos on the the security footage… but here you are.”

“So, what? What do you want me to do?”

“Join Shepard. Investigate the Collectors. Prepare the Galaxy for Reaper invasion. For now, that means keeping Shepard calm so she can finish healing. There is much more to come.”

 

**Shepard**

_“Irmãozão,” she called out in a sing-song voice, peering around a corner of a shipping container ucked in some cargo bay of some halfway to derelict freighter. She felt the bone-deep thrum of a mass effect core burning away below the cargo hold._

_“I miss you irmãozão!” Nym looked through boxes and crates, in vents, places too impossible for a teenage boy to fit. As she hunted, she felt eyes watching, and it occurred to her that she was being followed. They were coming to rip her away from the only life she had ever known._

_Panic and anger met in her chest and raced away with her heart, heading somewhere safe. Micha was good at hiding, but he always came out when he started to note the panic in her voice, when the sun was setting on honey-brushed fields and it was time to head home before it got too dark and mamãe and papai started to worry._

_But it was always dark in space, never got dark on the rigs where light moved in artificial cycles, and Micha wouldn’t come out of hiding._

_That’s when she heard the tell-tale drone of ships dropping from FTL and entering atmo. No, no, no. They were here._

_They were coming again, the slavers, the geth, the Collectors, the Reapers… no-- yes. She wasn’t sure who the enemy was anymore. She wasn’t sure a five year old should_ have _enemies. But she knew they were coming, and this time Micha wouldn’t save her by burying her under the bodies of their dead family. The high, buzzing drone of a particle beam hitting the outer hull of a ship shocked Nym into action, screaming for Micha as she was swept towards the escape pods by a sudden crush of soldiers._

_Micha was there, suddenly, and they were both running towards safety. She took his hand and dragged her brother forward, and then a bright beam of yellow particle lazer cut off their escape route and opened the freighter… the frigate… like a tin can._

_A whump of depressurization popped Nym’s eardrums and then she spun into the frozen silence of space, the wreck of her ship spinning in and out of view as she somersaulted into void. They skimmed above a planet, pieces of the wreck beginning their haloed, superheated descent into atmo against the gentle curvature of Mindoir._

_She scrambled at the back of her suit for her O2 line and saw the burst of condensation in her periphery as it vented. Could she control the bursts enough to right herself? She thought it, and it was done._

_Now she fell like a stone, just one more piece of detritus from the wreck crashing over the honey-tinged planet. She saw it now, the spray of debris landing over farmland and prefabs, and then there was Micha, reaching out for her as they hit atmospheric renery like they were skydiving and she yelled for him as he reached out to save her. He wasn’t wearing a suit, and his face was just like she remembered, brown and broad and shining with fierce protection and pride, but eyes already bloodshot-dead and face encrusted in frost, and covered in fine, orange scars. Hands locked, he told her everything was going to change. She didn’t have to hide anymore._

_Somewhere below, Aria waited._

 

**Garrus**

Shepard-- Nym-- whatever he was to call her now, she slept. She slept for hours. After his little chat with Miranda, Garrus returned to the recovery room and searched the room for bugs.

He did so tentatively at first, not sure if being obvious would provoke some sort of aggression from his benevolent captors. When no reprisals came from his casual sweep of the room, he stopped caring and searched in earnest, standing on a chair pushing up the polyboard ceiling tiles, checking the lamps, and eventually found two mics, one between the mattress and the bedframe of the cot, the other in the speaker under the observation window.

He stared into the darkened glass and crushed each one slowly, before dropping them onto the table next to Shepard’s shotgun. He hoped whoever had been listening got an earful of feedback.

Then, he sat, and watched Shepard sleep.

Weaver and Sensat came in to speak with him a few hours into his vigil, using hushed tones reserved for wakes or the rooms of the dying-- though perhaps it was that they felt like Cerberus was listening to everything they said. Garrus wouldn’t be surprised if he’d missed a bug.

“What’s the plan, boss?” Weaver looked alert and taught, a far cry from hir usual cheerful, irreverent self.

“Things are more complicated than I imagined. I need to talk to N--” he choked on her given name. “I need to talk to Shepard, when she wakes. We need to make some decisions, but I promise we’ll be out of here in the next 48 hours. Maybe less. They’ll let us go.”

Sensat stood sentinel at the door, watching him with eyes that seemed to gather the light. He caught her eye and held them for a long moment while Weaver fidgeted, and then Sensat nodded, once. It was all he needed to know that she trusted him to get them out of Cerberus’ clutches.

He heard Shepard shift behind him, nothing more than soft rustle of blankets and a gentle murmur-- “ _irmãozão_ ,” his translator picked up, and his visor offered context… _brother_. It was an Earth language and dialect and not her usual Galactic Standard. His visor spat out the origin-- Brazilian Portuguese.

Weaver ushered Sensat out the door and shot Garrus a half smile and a shooing gesture he supposed he should interpret as encouraging, but Weaver needn't have bothered. Garrus was back in the bedside chair before Shepard opened her eyes.

“How are you feeling?”

She blinked a few times and he wondered if she could see better now. The room was dim, but she found his eyes and smiled, reached out a slim brown hand.

“Dreams,” she muttered. “Make no sense.”

“They generally don’t, no,” he said. He took her hand. “What did you dream?”

“A shipwreck over Mindoir. My brother…” Something shifted across her face as she said names as if she was sounding out words from a forgotten language. Words like _irmãozão._ She frowned at him. “What are you doing all the way over there, big guy?” She tugged gently at his hand, and his body followed. “Lay down with me while we have a moment. I can still pretend to be hurting for a few more hours… After that…”

They both felt it, the pressure of circumstance that was about to rip them apart again. Time was short. He didn’t know what it was going to be that would take her away from him again, but he felt it coming like an impending invasion.

This could be the only chance he got to just _be_ with her _._ That it was happening in a little recovery room with Cerberus watching and listening to every word did nothing for the creeping doom that slid like a krogan prybar under his plates.

Shepard pressed to the wall to make room. The bed was too narrow for them both to fit comfortably, and his cowl hung off the edge, but they managed after a bit of fussing to make sure he wasn’t crushing her with his armor, and then…. he breathed in the scent of her, still healing but _better_ than she’d smelled in a long time. She smelled new, like rubbing his thumb over _nake_ leaves to release a bright, heady scent.

He pressed his nose to her bare scalp and his subharmonics began to rumble his contentment.

“It’s weird, you not having hair. You always had so much of it.”

Shepard laughed against his keel, muffled. “It’ll grow back,” she said, and she sounded like she was trying to reassure him, or perhaps herself. From what he’d observed, human hair was like a turian’s fringe, a great source of pride and beauty… and beyond that, a way to display identity. He’d noticed that some women wore their hair longer than men, and would force it into elaborate shapes, or pull it back. People with different skin tones had different textures of hair, or wore their hair in specific ways, like Weaver and hir ‘locks. He wondered what it felt like for Shepard to have lost her fringe.

He was also a little weirded out that it grew _back._

“Can’t promise the scars will improve though,” she said after a moment.

“I like the no hair,” he said, running the pads of his fingers against the prickles on her scalp, across her temples. “I can see more of you.” He paused for a moment, almost swallowing what he really wanted to say-- but he was done holding back, or pretending to be less in love with her than he really was. It wasn’t fair to either of them. The warmth in his subvocals snuck past the creeping doom. “You’re more beautiful every time I looked at you.”

She shifted against him. “Even with the scars?”

“You know,” he said, the warmth growing, spreading through him even as the worry gnawed deeper into his gut, “some people find scars very attractive… mind you, most of those people are krogan, but…”

She elbowed him, ineffective against the bulk of his armor and he grabbed her wrist, mandibles flaring into a grin despite himself as he pulled her hand down slowly to press against his cheek.

“So, you think I’m beautiful, huh?” Gray eyes shone in the dim light, lips parted in the barest hint of a human smile.

He shifted as she fished for compliments, sitting up to lean against the wall at an angle so his fringe wouldn’t jab, and pulled her into his lap, using his bulk to block Miranda’s view from the observation window. One arm went around her shoulders, the other hand worked its way up to cradle her face.

“So beautiful,” he whispered, and he saw telltale wetness sprung to the corner of her eyes before he leaned in to kiss her.

She gasped as Garrus claimed her mouth, and she opened to him, making a gentle, pleased humm that had him responding in kind. She tasted stale, like antiseptic and sleep, but he didn’t care because soft lips traced the lines of his mouth with the barest hint of wetness until he pulled away with another thought.

“Your scars… it’s like your light is literally trying to spill out of you.”

“Sweet talker,” she whispered, but the smile widened by a fraction as her eyes dropped from his, making her look almost shy. There was a thought. _Nym Shepard, shy_. Garrus’ mandibles fluttered in response, and his hand traced the new topography of the skin across her cheek.

“You have to know what an incredible person you are, Nym.”

“Hmmmm. No. I can’t say that I know what you’re talking about.” The slight waver in her voice because his arm to tighten around her shoulders, pulling her closer. He buried his face in her neck to give himself time to think. It was a mistake, because the smell of her was making his brain flatline. His words, when they came, were slow and measured.

“You’re like… a sun. Hot, and bright and so…. very...dense.” There was a pause as his teasing sunk in. He nipped at her neck-- ever so careful, and she made a soft squealing sound that surprised a laugh out of him.

“I am _not_ dense. I’m….” His voice pitched lower, serious again, cutting her off. “You create this pull around you.... This incredible gravity.”

“I’m...”

“Shut up and listen to me.” She stilled. “Spirits, Nym. You’re like a damn sun. People are drawn to you-- your creativity and your passion. You’re…. scary, and fascinating and people start _orbiting_ around you. And you give them…” He cleared his throat as his emotions caught up with his voice, making it hard to speak. “You give _me_ drive. I’m caught in the orbit of Shepard.”

She laughed, and her eyes opened and she turned the full force of her gaze on him, amusement and wonder… and… dare he name it? Adoration. Okay, maybe just affection. He’d settle for affection.

“I don’t know how you see any of that in me.” She was still studying him. “I don’t even know why… you’re here. After the way I acted… a whole mess of crazy. Abandoning you like that, without any explanation.”

“You don’t owe me anything, Shepard.”

“Nym,” she corrected.

“Nym,” he confirmed.

“At least when we’re in private.”

“This isn’t… exactly private.” He couldn’t shake that there was a window at his back, behind which sat Cerberus Operative Miranda Lawson. “I destroyed two bugs, but there’s probably more.”

She brushed a finger against his mouth, hissing air between her teeth in a susurrus that would be impossible for his turian mouth to imitate. “Let’s maintain the illusion while we can.”

“All right, Nym.”

The corner of her mouth twitched as she studied him. “Since we’re doing poetry today…” she licked her lips, eyes darting back and forth between his, her next words almost breathless. “You’re like sunlight… Light refracted by atmosphere, distilled into something vital. And beautiful.”

“I do always strive to be both useful and aesthetically pleasing.”

She swatted him.

“If only you knew... Krul was right. You’re Sunshine.”

He groaned at the nickname and Shepard chuckled, and fitted herself into the crook of his arm, muttering about damn armor as she lay her head on his shoulder. Each moment, Garrus waited for them to be interrupted, to be torn away from her again but... they just sat like that for a while before she stirred again.

“Where are you from?”

The question caught him off guard. “Cipritine,” he rumbled after a moment. “On Palaven.”

“Do you have any family?”

He made a noise of assent. “Parents, and an older sister. Lots of aunts and uncles, grandparents, cousins. The Vakarians are a massive clan but it’s mostly just been me, Solana, and mom.”

“Do you miss them?” She asked. Her voice was almost inaudible against his keel, and his hands drifted down her back to find the hem of her t-shirt, rubbing absent patterns in the mind-boggling smoothness of her skin. She made another little noise of human contentment against him.

“I do, sometimes. My sister and my mother at least.”

“I’m sensing daddy issues.” He felt her laugh again, a slight shrug of her shoulders against his arm, and he grumbled.

“Is it that obvious?”

She made a noncommittal noise. “Tell me about them,” she urged, pulling away to look up into his face again. He hesitated, afraid now that this moment he’d wanted so badly had finally come. “Please? I want to know more about you.”

At those words, any reservation was swept away.

“Solana was always the good turian. Hell of an engineer-- civic and infrastructure. She bonded a few years ago, with two others. Beautiful ceremony.”

“ _Two_?”

“A triad. Helps distribute care of young, burdens of emotional and domestic labor. And sometimes… three people just fall in love. Turians bond on a physiological level. There’s no question about jealousy when you feel loved right down to your nervous system.”

“Oh,” she said. “Interesting. Some humans are polyamorous. Lots of people view it as a choice, between that or monogamy. The asari are also down for polyamory. Shocking, I know.”

“I would be too. I don’t how know they bear the heartache of watching their loved ones die every half a century.”

“I think they experience time differently than us,” she said, sounding sad. “And their children are always asari… _usually_.” She said the last bitterly.

He pulled her back into his keel and the rumble in his chest intensified. Asari talk was dangerous territory, but before he could redirect she was back to her relentless questions.

“Any kids?”

Garrus chuffed, shocked. If he’d had children,... he wouldn’t… couldn’t have abandoned them to go play vigilante on Omega. It was just… not done. “ _Me?_ Spirits, no!” She laughed again. It was good to hear her laugh.

“I meant your sister, big guy.”

“Oh…” He only realized that he didn’t know as he said so. “It’s been… almost two years since I’ve spoken with her. She or her wife could very well have had children by now.”

Shepard nodded again, as receptive and peaceful as he’d ever known her to be.

“So, Solana is your sister. She’s bonded to two people. She’s an engineer, and she may or may not have children. What’s your mother like?”

“She’s… she’s an incredible woman. Strong, and brave. Takes no shit from anyone in the clan…. She used to be _catkith_ \-- head of the Cipritine Vakarians… but she’s very ill.”

“I’m sorry,” Shepard whispered.

“I am too. It’s a degenerative condition-- hard on her mind and her body, and there’s no cure.” Something must have broken in his voice, because Shepard’s hand went to the back of his neck, tracing delicate, soothing patterns in his hide. When had she gotten so good at knowing where to touch him?

“I don’t even know if she’s still alive,” he said finally. She pulled back again to look at him, and a small hand found his face, traced the line of his mandible. He closed his eyes for a moment, pressing her hand to his face. His mouth found her palm and nuzzled.

“Will you contact them?”

“Once-- once we’re off Omega. I want to finish out whatever it is I’ve started there. Then… yes, I’ll call them.”

Shepard tugged his head down and kissed the center of his crest, sending a shock through him. That-- that was new. A kiss that sat in between turian and human. Lips to forehead-- he hummed, but Shepard was already moving on.

“And you worked for C-Sec?”

“After my service, yeah. Ten years on the force, the last five of those spent in the queue for Spectre candidacy.”

The bitter argument that had ensued when his father had found out that Garrus had not only applied, but been accepted into Spectre candidacy, all without his knowledge or consent, was still burned in Garrus’ memory like it was yesterday. The rift had been sudden and violent, and had not been bridged since.

“Me too,” she said quietly.

“Really?”

She made a noise of assent. “Nihlus--” her voice broke for a moment and Garrus’ heart squeezed-- a mix of jealousy and empathy. “Nihlus was my… mentor. We worked together for about four years. He put my name in as a Spectre candidate before Fisher was on the list, even. They chose _Fisher_ over me because, of course they did. First human Spectre couldn’t be some crazy, unaffiliated nobody from the Terminus. Had to be Alliance. Then…”

Garrus’ heart was trying to make a break from his chest. Nihlus, Fisher…

“Eden Prime,” they said together, and Shepard’s hand froze on the back of his neck.

“Yes,” she said, and it looked like some vast, internal struggle was going on behind her gray eyes. “Gods, I had the worst dream while I was under.”

“What did you dream?” He asked.

“I dreamed I was there, on Eden Prime. I saw Nihlus’ body. He’d been… shot, bullet to the back of his head. I knew he’d been betrayed by his old mentor, but for my sub-conscious to dredge that up… make it feel like I was there…” She shuddered against him. “It wasn’t the way Nihlus Kryick was supposed to die. After… the Council wouldn’t tell me jack shit. Fisher was on it, and I was so… angry… at him, for trusting Saren. I withdrew my candidacy and went back to hunting slavers in the Traverse, couldn’t handle politics or other people for a while. Ended up on Omega when I got too tired to go on anymore. Needed a rest. Then… I met you.”

Garrus was quiet for a moment, holding Shepard as close as he could, letting his senses overwhelm him: the smell of her, feel of her skin and her pulse, the rhythm of her breath. He needed to tell her about Fisher but he wanted this moment to last just as long as he could manage it. His left leg was going to pins and needles but he refused to move, or say anything. He wanted to absorb this one, last, precious moment with Nym, because the doom had settled over them like a leaded blanket. The peace wouldn’t last. He wasn’t sure why, but he knew that it was all going to come crashing down around them, leaving their fragile, wounded relationship shattered.

Shepard broke the silence again, before he was ready to tell her.

“Do you think we would have met? If we’d both been Spectres?”

Garrus hummed. Their lives had been dancing around each other for years now-- first as Spectre candidates, and then their ties to Fisher and Nihlus, and by proxy, Saren…

“It’s a nice thought,” she said, her voice slow and dreamy. “Anything besides Omega is a nice though, really…”

He needed to tell her about Fisher.

“Shepard,” he said.

It was always this when he tried to tell her something important. He’d say her name and she’d barrel on ahead until she just couldn’t ignore his insistence anymore. “Nym,” she corrected. “D’you think… let's get hypothetical for a second… d’you think if we’d met on the Citadel…”

“Nym, I…”

She barreled on, each word tumbling out of her and he felt her shaking. “I wonder if we’d met on a job, or if I’d been promoted instead of Fisher… d’you think we would have still met? D’you think I still would have fallen in love with you?”

The silence between them was astounding, stretched tight and long and… “Garrus… can you say something? Anything?”

Hearing his name spoken in her voice shattered him as effectively as a bat struck against a window.

“I worked with Fisher,” he blurted out. Not breathless ‘ _I love you_ ,’ not a shocked, ‘ _you’re in love with me_?’ Spirits _damn_ him. The doom crept more expediently towards them both.

“I served on the Normandy during the Geth incursion and the hunt for Saren. I was with the Hero of the Citadel when we took down Sovereign.”

There was another silence. “You’re shitting me.” She let her hands drop sliding back to face him on the bed so she slipped free of his arm.

“I wish I was.”

“Did you know Nihlus? Saren?”

“No,” he said. “Well, not really. I met Nihlus once, years ago, and I helped kill Saren. Twice… actually. Fisher talked him into suicide in the Council chambers, but he was indoctrinated, transformed into some kind of puppet. A servant of the Reapers... they used his body to try and kill us-- Commander Fisher, Liara, and myself.”

There was silence for a long while, and he couldn’t look at her. Not until she said something. Gently, he felt a hand wrap around his, and he looked up.

She had the oddest expression on her face, a crooked smile, dazed and… amused, and adoring. Damn, but that was not what he’d been expecting. “So that’s it. That’s your big secret?”

“That’s it.”

“More than just a renegade cop, then.”

“Not much more than that. I just got to play Spectre with Fisher for a time. He sent me back to C-Sec once it was all over, but things were never the same. And then, after he died, things fell apart even more. The Council was new, and didn’t realize the implications of what had happened. The Alliance covered things up. The crew of the Normandy unraveled. I lost it. Went to Omega. Met you. You know the rest.”

“Implications of what? The geth attack? This is bizarre.” She closed her eyes and leaned back, fingers tightening around his talons. “Gods, Saren was such an asshole.”

“He’s dead now.”

“Dead now,” she echoed. “I met him once, when I was a kid. Came to Omega. Huge turian. Brutal. Even… even Aria was kind of scared of him. He made we want to be a Spectre.”

“He was a monster, in the end.” Garrus took a deep breath. “But it’s not over.”

“What do you mean? The geth? The whole Sovereign thing?”

“I mean, Cerberus thinks the Collectors and the Reapers are related. I _know_ the Reaper threat isn’t over. I’ve been sitting on that knowledge for too long now… I had no pull or sway with the Council, with the Hierarchy after all the crap I pulled with Fisher and falling out with my father. It’s been eating me up inside, the inaction, and when you left… I didn’t know if I would ever see you again. So I decided it was time to mobilized the squad or something… do something about the Reaper threat… what, I have no idea.... But now… I’ve found you, and Cerberus knows things… and I think a lot of this is more than coincidence. And I don’t know where to go from here.”

“What… this was all engineered?” Her brows drew down into that thoughtful place she went when trying to solve a particularly confounding tactical puzzle. “I don’t--,” but what she was going to say way lost to time when the intercom buzzed, making her jump.

“Captain Shepard?” Jacob Taylor’s voice crackled over the room speakers. She sat up in Garrus’ arms and cocked her head.

Nym’s mouth twisted at being interrupted, but she spoke evenly into the room’s ambiance. “Taylor, is that you?”

“Yes, ma’am. We have transport arranged for you to Minuitmen Station, where you’ll be assigned your ship and crew.”

“What about Vakarian’s squad?”

“The Archangel squad will accompany you, if that’s your order.”

“It is.”

“Roger that, Shepard. I’ll be by at the quarter-hour and take you to the armory. Finally.” The last was muttered, and brought a slight grin to Shepard’s lips.

“Good. And can someone find me some food? I’m fucking starving.” She glanced at Garrus and he shrugged at her unasked question. “Bring something for our turians as well.”

“Aye aye, ma’am. It’s on its way-- except…”

“Yes?”

“We don’t have any dextro rations.”

“Of course you don’t.” Her mouth twisted in disgust, but Garrus wasn’t surprised. He had some rations stoed away, but he could tell she was going to go off on the principal of the thing.

“Anything else, ma’am?” Came Jacob’s even reply.

“That’s it Taylor. Shepard, out.”

“Damn human supremacist groups… never thinking of our dextro brethren.”

“I’ve got some protein bars, Shepard. It’s fine.”

She lapsed into silence, her hand absently tracing the yoke of his armor and down his arms back to his hands as she studied him. The silence one again stretched between them, and just as Garrus was about to break it with some nonsense, she spoke again.

“So are you just going to pretend that I didn’t say I’m in love with you?” Her eyes were the color of a summer storm bearing down on him and there was no shelter left from her, from any of this.

_This is what you wanted, Vakarian._

He just wished it had happened anywhere else but in a Cerberus station full of mad scientists and paramilitary commandos. He supposed, somewhat absently as he caught her eyes and held them, his heart racing millions of AUs a second, that this never would have happened if they were on Omega, as close as they’d gotten before. She was too closed there, too wounded. But he was sensing something new in her, or perhaps something that had been dormant on Omega that was opening now that she was away from that place. He didn’t have a name for it yet, but he would find out what was opening in her now.

“Oh, I heard you.” The words dropped out of him like stones hitting water, sinking rapidly into unknown depths. He feared there wasn’t going to be a bottom.

“And?” She drew in on herself a little, watching him like she was about to pounce, or run away… Angry and wild and afraid and…. hopeful. She was sublime. “Now you’ve got the whole Fisher thing off your chest…”

He cupped her face in his hand and held her eyes with his own. The depth of feeling he saw reflected back at him, the mix of fear and hope… it should have scared him. It _did_ scare him, but he followed the gentle curve of her upper lip with his thumb, that little divot in the center and he felt the beast in his chest roar in triumph.

“I do think we would have met. I all possible universes, I’d like to think that we will meet. Will have met.” Ugh, grammar. Words, getting in the way. But her translator didn’t parce his subvocals. Words would have to do. “And yes, I think… every time… I’d fall in love with you, too. Every time.”

 

 

**Shepard**

Reapers. Commander Fisher. The _Normandy._

Garrus.

It was all sort of unbelievable.

_Garrus._

He’d been there every moment she hadn’t, from just after Nihlus’ death to the Battle of the Citadel, fighting against the monster that had killed Nihlus in the end. A new picture of Nihlus’ death was starting to form. She’d always imagined a power-mad sadist in Saren, someone who had manipulated Nihlus’ trust-- and… her throat closed at the thought-- she’d hated Nihlus for being so blind to his mentor’s insanity. She’d hated Nihlus for… loving him. She haded Nihlus for dying by his mentor’s hand.

It would be like Aria killing _her._ Sort of. It was the principal of the thing.

_Poor trusting Nihlus, on Eden Prime, with a bullet in his brain._

But that was then. She’d lost everything. Her mentor, her foothold in Citadel space, a shot at legitimacy and a real chance to make a difference. What about now?

Cerberus. Haunted by dead Spectres. On the fringes of a squad of misfits.

Garrus.

“And yes, I think… every time… I’d fall in love with you, too. Every time.”

Damn her traitorous eyes, leaking all over the place. She wrapped her arms around him for the last precious moment they had before the tide called Cerberus swept them into the unknown, buried her nose into his neck to breath in the not-so-alien-anymore, intoxicating rainforest and gun oil scent of him, ignoring awkward pinch of his cowl armor, and she felt his arms wrap around her waist and squeeze and this was it. It was all they had time for.

“Good,” was all she managed to say, but there was so much more she wanted to ask him, to tell him. She’d had so much time before, to do this with him, ask him questions, open up, say what had been riding around in her heart for months, and now that she was ready….

There was no time.

It was like their steps had been parallel for years, walking side by side towards some inevitable doom together, but without seeing each other just a hand’s breadth away.

But they were warriors, so it wasn’t doom, but destiny. Or perhaps duty. And it was all going to end in tragedy.

Not to mention they were going to have company in about a minute. She sat up and untangled herself from the bulk of his armor, slipping from the bed with one last touch to his cheek, and gathered as much self possession around her as possible, so she could face whatever else Cerberus had in store for her with the remainder of her dignity intact.

_You’re long past dignity, Shepard. Maybe, if you’re lucky, dignity is a sphere and you’ll slingshot so far around that you'll wind up some place respectable._

Moments after she’d straightened her t-shirt and run a hand over the stubble on her head, an orderly came in with a tray of food.

Her stomach gave an aggressive and undignified growl, and she practically jumped the woman. “Operative Taylor will be here in five minutes,” the orderly said, backing slowly out the door, eyes shifting from Shepard to Garrus and back. Shepard stared him out of the room, only turning her attention to the food once the man had gone.

Roast beef, a banana, and pudding.

She kept sneaking glances at Garrus as she ate the sandwich. The food hit her stomach like a freighter, but she tore through it anyway. Who knew when they would have time to eat again.

He was watching her, unapologetic and looking slightly dazed. He looked how she felt.

So many questions whirled-- but she felt muddled, confused, as if she already half knew the answers.

It didn’t matter, anyway. He was _here._ That was the presiding thought. That and how fucking delicious roast beef was. This was _not_ hospital food.

Damn Cerberus and their para-military luxuries.

There was so much to plan for… so much left she wanted to ask of him, but not now. Not when Cerberus was listening to every word.

“Right. Looks like we’re moving soon. Minuteman Station, _gods_ , Cerberus is obsessed with ancient human history.” Garrus tilted his head but she shook hers in reply, holding up a finger. “Are Sensat, Weaver, and the Professor okay?”

Garrus nodded. “Tired and frustrated, but fine.”

“Good. Okay. Let me think for a minute.”

Shepard grabbed the banana and peeled it thoughtfully as she laid out each bubble of worry like puzzle pieces that had to fit together somehow.

First, her physical health. She did a quick body scan to find that she was recovering, still in pain and going slow, but better. The L5 implant was a success. Cerberus had fully upgraded her from barely functional operative to possible supersoldier.

She set that piece aside and turned to the next item.

Collectors. That was her new fight, and she embraced it. They were just another sort of slaver, after all. But then there was Garrus…

Garrus. Her heart seemed to strain in the confines of her chest for a moment, and she took note of that feeling as well-- that she loved Garrus, and that he fit into this all somehow. He was the underpinnings of this whole thing… she didn’t understand how… but in that moment she felt like she’d known him for years, and she was going to _need_ him as the future unfolded, and not just in a romantic sense.

Okay, Garrus. She took a bite of banana and shot him a little smile as he started to check his gear-- Cerberus had let him keep his guns, which was frankly shocking. Perhaps to build trust?

Reapers. Her mind skittered over the chasm that word represented. For a moment she heard the sub-audible quake of reality being ripped apart at the atomic level, of a galaxy burning…

_Metal burrowed deeper into muscle and laced up bone, replacing calcium with silicone. People no longer rotted but rusted, no longer went mad, just turned off and did as they were told. Twisted corpses puppeted through horrors until they just stopped._

Indoctrination. Saren.

Her hands convulsed and she heard a soft smack of something hitting the floor, and then felt warm, familiar pressure on her arm.

“Easy,” Garrus was at her side when she opened her eyes. She looked down to find the remains of her banana on the floor.

“Damn,” she sighed, her voice not quite coming out right, like there wasn’t enough air in the room. “So hard to find fresh fruit...” Garrus picked it up and put it on the tray, despite that the floor was so clean she could probably lick it without picking up a single disease, and handed her the pudding.

“What happened? Pain?” Concern was written all over his brow as he steered her back to the cot and pushed her down gently. She didn’t resist.

“Not sure. Residual dream freakout. Anesthetics always fuck with me.” _We’ll talk about it later_ , her eyes said, and he nodded. She opened the pudding cup and swirled the vanilla goo around with a plastic spoon without eating any. She’d never liked pudding. “So, you’re pretty much a Reaper expert?”

Garrus nodded. _We’ll talk about it later,_ his eyes said. She flashed him a shaky smile. Her eyes slid over to the one-way window, and she gripped his hand in silent understanding.

Reapers were coming. She believed it now, as deeply as she believed she loved Garrus. Both were bone deep and aching with truth, and urgently in need of addressing. She wasn’t sure which scared her more, but she had a feeling she would be finding out soon.

The door slid open without so much as a “ _reporting for escort duty, Ma’am!_ ” and Taylor marched in, accompanied by Miranda and a platoon of Cerberus commandos. She saw Sensat’s stone-bland face and clan markings in a flash of orange, and Weaver waving frantically before the door slid shut behind Taylor and Lawson.

“I’m assuming that’s an honor guard,” Shepard said sweetly, hopping of the bed, hiding the shaking of her knees by pressing them together and pulling herself upright. Garrus stood still as stone a step behind her, and she suspected he was ready to to spring forward if she looked ready to drop her pudding cup as Taylor snapped a smart salute.

“Something like that,” Taylor said, eyes triangulating between the one-way window, Garrus, and Shepard. “We’ll get you armed and suited up. You’re ship is waiting at another station, and the Illusive Man wishes to speak with you there.”

“The Illusive Man?”

“Our fearless leader,” Taylor supplied.

Wonderful. With a name like The Illusive Man, that could only mean he’d be one more anxiety bubble made of of what-the-fuck to put on the table and prod until it did a trick.

Miranda did a final check of her vitals and cleared her for travel.

“You’re healing well, all things considered, Shepard.” Miranda carefully did not look at Garrus, even as his icy-blue eyes were drilled into her.

Shepard put on the too-big flip-flops, quietly resigning herself to indignity for another few minutes, even as she picked up her shotgun.

Finally, they were on the move. The door cycled open and the commandos flanked her squadmates as Shepard stepped into the hall.

Weaver looked tired with bags around hir dark eyes, but slung an arm around Shepard’s shoulder as they trooped down the corridor. “You’re a hell of a woman to try and find in this Galaxy, Shepard.”

Her heart squeezed as she glanced over at Sensat, who was carefully not looking at _her,_ and licked her lips.

“I thought you could use a challenge,” Shepard said. Sensat glanced at her, pinning Shepard’s breath in her throat for a moment before the turian’s gold eyes moved on to scan the corridor.

“You did, at that. Love your aquarium, by the way. Always a big fan of fish.” Weaver gave her shoulder a friendly squeeze while Shepard’s mouth hung open and slipped back to hir mate.

Well, she supposed that Garrus hadn’t gone to snoop around her hanger alone. She took a deep, steadying breath at the thought of Weaver there, or _anyone_ there send the old lovers, panic and paranoia thrilling down her spine. Weaver was an ally, she reminded herself. A friend. It was good to have friends. Friends raced across half the galaxy and assaulted secret medical stations in deep space in order to bust you out and make sure you were alive.

Mordin was there too, trailing behind as he chatted with Miranda about genetics something or other, when they hit the door to the armory. It slid open, and Shepard stopped dead for a moment.

“Spirits,” Sensat said behind her, and Weaver swore roundly.

Slowly, Shepard walked into the room and turned in a slow circle. Armor lockers lined the wall, but her eyes were drawn to the long tables full of weapons. She strolled along the length of the first table, a long, low whistle escaping into the stunned quite.

“Tap what you want, and we’ll make sure the quartermaster gets the requisitions,” Jacob said, coming up alongside her with a datapad.

“Can I just take everything?”

She took the order sheet and went totally overboard. A ML-77 that launched auto-targeting shells that could stop a krogan dead? Yes _please_. An M-100? That must have been why they were testing her aptitude for explosives. Some of the other weapons were a bit outlandish, but then...

“Holy shit, is this the _Arc Projector?”_ She took the massive triangle of a gun from it’s foam cradle and inspected it for a moment. “It’s _beautiful._ Who needs technicians when you have an Arc Projector?”

“Hey!” Weaver shot her a glare from the other side of the room where ze was inspecting the armor. “You want to haul that around, that’s your prerogative.”

Garrus was inspecting the machine guns, rubbing the back of his neck. They exchanged glances and she gave the tiniest of shrugs. His mandibles gave the barest of flicks before he hefted a sharp looking assault rifle and peered down the sights.

_Yes, Vakarian, I’ve made a deal with the devil, but the devil has some pretty sweet toys._

She marked up the datapad, and then turned to the armor.

Weaver stood frowning at the gear, deep in thought. “They all have boob cups,” ze commented. “Why do they always have boob cups?”

It was true. Shepard groaned as she looked over the gear. Not only were there boob cups, but the armor was all significantly heavier than her commando gear.

Weaver’s eyes took on a manic gleam as ze pointed out that the cups actually caused more danger to the wearer, not distributing force away from the heart but towards it. “A bunch of white men designed this shit, let me tell you,” ze muttered to Shepard. “Take the Kestrel pack, and save yourself a heart attack by well-placed concussive rounds.”

“You know, that always weirded me out,” Garrus said wandering over.

“All right, people,” Shepard said, turning to Miranda and Jacob. “I have submitted to your surgeon’s knife, raided your goodies, and now I’m ready to get my ship and meet the devil. But can I please… put on some armor first? My tolerance for indignity is reaching its end.”

 

~~~

 

**Horsehead Nebula, Minutemen Station**

**Shepard**

Shepard had to laugh at the names Cerberus gave to things. It was telling, in a way. The organization was so invested in ancient human history that they seemed to look backwards while moving forwards.

Meanwhile, the galaxy moved forward without them....

The squad and their Cerberus escort disembarked from the shuttle and passed into the shimmering halls of the space station. Here too, everything had luxury finishings, and it made Shepard itch. Shepard liked her tin cans with rockets strapped to the back, not the luxury in deep space aesthetic that Cerberus was going for.

She wore her new armor with some unease. She felt overly bulky, not as agile as she would have been in her commando leathers, but she would admit that the Kestrel armor cut an impressive (and boobless) figure. The ceramic was tinted a black so dark it absorbed light, with a red stripe down the arms and purple detailing around the joints and seals.

With her shotgun clipped at the small of her back, and a new heavy pistol at her hip, it was a good set of armor to go meet the devil in.

“All right, Miranda. Take me to your leader.”

Lawson gave her a flat and long suffering look which Shepard met with a bland smile. If she was already getting on Miranda’s nerves, they were going to have a long road ahead.

Miranda lead the way from the docking bay, and Shepard glanced over her shoulder to see Garrus watching her. She smiled, a tiny twitch of her lips she knew he would catch, and nodded. She would be fine. They were all armed and wound so tight that if Cerberus tried anything…

But Shepard’s gut told her that they were safe, that there was nothing to worry about regarding Cerberus. At least not immediately.

Miranda brought her to a door, and paused at the security lock. “The Illusive Man has invested a great deal in the project, Shepard.”

“Right. Translation received, loud and clear Miranda. ‘Don’t fuck this up for me in front of the boss.’ I promise you’ve Frankensteined the right monster.”

Miranda sighed, and palmed the door. It opened into a dimly lit room, with steps descending down onto some sort of ring-like platform. Shepard strode in, looking for The Illusive Man, but his title seemed to suddenly make sense, because he wasn’t there. Cautiously, she stepped into the ring. A holo grid of orange light skimmed her body, and Shepard shifted uncomfortable as an image flickered to life before her.

She heard an inhale of breath and then a smoke filled, “Captain Shepard,” on the exhale. A man in an impeccably tailored linen suit sat in a low-backed chair, an inch of some liquid that was probably 40 proof strong swirling in a tumbler in one hand, cigarette gently burning in the other. Out the massive viewport behind him, a dying star that burned in a frenetic rainbow of hues served as backdrop.

“The Illusive Man. By the Goddess, I feel dumb calling you that. Do you have a nickname or something? T.I.M. maybe?” She almost laughed, except that reality shifted subtly around her, making her feel as if _she_ were the hologram, and this devil before her was the one that was solid. It was a clever bit of theater he had orchestrated.

Her new boss smiled, thin as gruel and twice as unappetizing. “It’s good to see you well, Shepard. Good work on Freedom’s Progress. The quarian data, as well as what you provided has been very useful in our next steps towards finding out why the Collectors are abducting human colonies.” He spoke like he’d had large caps inexpertly placed over all his teeth, and had his tongue split down the middle but was trying hard to hide it. Shepard’s skin crawled as she crossed her arms and shifted her weight to one foot, tapping the other as if she had important places to be, but she let him monologue a bit more, just to get his measure. “Humanity is facing the greatest threat it's ever known. We’re at war, Shepard, and we need people like you to fight it.”

“‘People like me’?”

“People who aren’t afraid to do what must be done. People who can see past Council and Alliance politics to the heart of things, and make the tough decisions when they come. Like on Torfan.”

Shepard’s heart went cold. Torfan. Blood and screaming, hundreds dead, and her the burning, furious center-point of slaughter.

She hadn’t thought about Torfan since… well, since Nihlus. He’d picked her up in the aftermath, while she buried the bodies of the slaves who had died in the crossfire, and used his Spectre authority to keep her from being declared a war criminal. A year later, she was up for Spectre candidacy, which was seen as tacit approval from the Council. After the danger of rotting in a Council jail cell for the rest of her life had been eclipsed by the promise of Spectre authority, she’d locked Torfan away. Yet another secret that made her a monster.

“You think I’m pro human because I’m anti-slaver?”

“Massacring three hundred batarians in retaliation for Elysium is certainly not pro-batarian.”

“That’s ancient history. I really get the feeling Cerberus is stuck in the past.”

“Hardly. But it’s telling, Shepard. It proves you’re not squeamish. You’re willing to do what must be done. If Commander Fisher were alive, he might be standing here instead of you. He fought Sovereign, and knew the Reaper threat was real, and wasn’t over. His death was a massive blow, but he wasn’t the only best and brightest humanity has to offer. It’s time for you to step up and do something _real.”_

“For someone who likes to piss on Galactic politics, you’re doing an awful lot of grandstanding.” T.I.M. took a drag from his cigarette and blew smoke directly at her hologram. Or rather, where her hologram probably stood in front of him.

“Careful Shepard. You’re not the only operative we’re funding in this war. You don’t perform, and things could change very quickly. For now, you’ll be flying our flagship and taking on the Collectors where they live.”

Shepard switched her weight to her other foot, keeping the iron curtain of control firmly drawn against the sudden fear she felt creep up her spine. It didn’t sound any better coming from T.I.M. that it did coming from Miranda. “The Omega 4 Relay.”

“Indeed.”

“A suicide mission.”

“You could call it that. No ship has ever returned, but I have teams working on ways to get you there without being shot on sight. In the meantime, you need to gather allies and resources. If we get word of an impending Collector attack, you’ll be the first on the ground to fight it.”

“Understood,” Shepard said. Finally, something solid from him, and Cerberus intel would be incredibly useful. “Hunt and intercept the Collectors. Build a team. Hit them where they live.”

“It seems you’re already well on your way to a team. Officer Vakarian is a fortuitous find…” He smiled a secret, slimy smile. “If I believed in such things, I might even suggest that fate was involved in bringing the two of you together. No matter. Do consider the other dossiers we will provide. The little band of misfits called Archangel might be tough enough for Omega, but facing the Collectors is going to require a whole other level of commitment.”

Shepard smiled grimly. She'd look at his dossiers, sure. Then she'd chuck them in the bin. She already had her team. They were crazy and surly and misguided, but they were Archangel. It was already a done deal. She just had to tell them.

“Understood. Anything else?”

“Two more things. We need to find a way to counteract the paralyzing nanobot swarms seen in the Freedom’s Progress data. I have a science team working on it, but you will need to find someone who can develop a practical application and field test it.”

Shepard nodded, keeping the grin from her face as she thought of her grizzled salarian doctor digging into a new puzzle. “All right. And the second thing?”

“Miranda is waiting outside to take you to your new ship, and the people who crew her. Happy hunting, Captain Shepard.”

The holo-grid winked out of existence, and Shepard was left alone in the comm room. She could almost smell a faint odor of cigarettes, and shook her head to clear it of the whammy he’d tried to put on her with clever stage tricks and threats.

Miranda met her at the door with a stocky young human with a thick beard. He wore Cerberus fatigues and a baseball cap tugged low over his eyes, and stood gingerly, as if balancing was a difficult proposition that required concerted effort.

“Are you the pilot?” She asked, stopping short to take stock of the new arrival.

“Jeff Moreau, former Flight Lieutenant, Alliance Navy. Now with Cerberus. Call me Joker. You’re Captain Shepard?” He managed a flick of a sloppy salute when Shepard nodded. Giving her a once over that spoke of scepticism-- scepticism she matched. She'd much rather have someone she already knew at the helm of her as of yet immaterial ship. Still, plenty of time to sort out command once she was out of direct Cerberus control.

“Joker it is. I’m the Captain… of what, I’m not exactly sure yet…”

Something sparked behind the young man’s eyes. “They haven’t told you?”

“I just woke up from a medically induced coma, so no. They haven’t told me much of anything other than we’ve been assigned a suicide mission.”

“Right, right.” Shepard got the sense that he was barely containing his glee.

Miranda coughed pointedly and lead the way down yet another gleaming corridor to a room with a large viewport. Joker limped along heavily, one hip clearly unable to bear much weight, and they kept the pace slow. Inside, Shepard was burning.

She knew that name… Jeff Moreau… Joker...

Her gaze was distracted by the viewport. Garrus stood with his arm braced on the plexi, silhouetted by the bright docking bay lights that shone through. He seemed to be bracing himself, as if his he couldn’t trust his legs, hand clenched in a tight fist above his head. Sensat and Weaver stook a ways back, staring out the window in what might be close to awe. Mordin was sitting on a crate humming to himself, poking at a datapad.

“Garrus?” Her voice was soft, like she was trespassing in a Athamein Temple. She stepped up to his side and stared out the viewport onto the most beautiful ship she’d ever seen. It was a frigate, the front narrow, long and sleek, with massive thrusters set behind the wingspan, with housing for a drive core five times larger than a friggage of that class would ever need. A huge SR2 was emblazoned on the side of the gleaming chrome of its hull, as well as a Cerberus logo. Her breath caught and she swore under her breath.

She’d seen images of a ship like this-- the _Normandy_. Fisher’s prototype stealth frigate. The name-- Jeff “Joker” Moreau coalesced in her memory, and suddenly another puzzle piece fitted neatly into place.

“Damn,” she breathed. “Is that my ship?” Somewhere behind her, Miranda gave the affirmative.

Garrus turned to look at her, shock written across every feature.

“Shepard…” he breathed. “I served on that ship. That-- the SR1…”

Joker limped up to them, mouth hanging open like a barn door, and Garrus’ ice-blue eyes slipped from Nym to the pilot. Shepard didn’t think that Garrus could look any more shocked than he already did, but she was wrong. His mandibles flared wide, and he took a step back as if Joker were a ghost.

“Garrus Vakarian? Holy shit. I thought you were dead.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Since picking this story back up, I’ve had some new ideas for Nym’s backstory. While it’s been established that she was at the Blitz, she is now officially the Butcher of Torfan. This won’t change much in Aim until I do a rewrite (hahaha oh god why do I do this to myself), but it’s going to come up again... for sure.


	21. Bad Penny

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> These Omega nerds have earned a bit of a break.

_The most remarkable thing about you standing in the doorway_  
_Is that it's you, and that you are standing in the doorway_

"Going to Georgia" - The Mountain Goats

 

**Garrus**

“Joker. I should have known if the _Normandy_ was nearby, you wouldn’t be far behind.”

“I’ll say it again: thought you were dead.” Joker looked as awkward as Garrus felt, holding himself stiffly with a look just shy of horror plastered on his face.

“Sorry to disappoint.” Garrus rubbed the back of his neck, huffing as his brain reeled. He was seeing ghosts.

“Aw hell, Garrus.”

Garrus was at a loss. They’d never had much to say to each other-- Joker had always just been the vaguely disrespectful, incredibly gifted pilot who’s only real reason to exist was to fly. Garrus wasn’t surprised to find Joker at the helm of an SR-2, but it was still closer to seeing ghosts than he was strictly comfortable with.

“What are you even doing here?” The pilot asked.

“He’s with me.” Nym said, watching the exchange with her back to the viewport and the SR-2, one long leg kicked over the other as her eyes bounced from Joker to Garrus and back, before settling on Miranda. Her toe tapped a rhythm on floor grate and she looked… amused. “Operative Lawson, I’m starting to suspect that all of this is simply a Commander Fisher nostalgia tour-- the Reapers were, after all, his torch.”

“Do not speak ill of the dead, Captain,” Miranda said. “Commander Fisher may be dead, but his legacy lives on. People like Joker… like Officer Vakarian still rally to the cause, if we raise the flag high enough.”

“Or build a fancy enough ship,” Nym pointed out, rather reasonably, Garrus thought. Garrus supposed it would take a hell of a bribe to get a good Alliance soldier like Joker to join Cerberus, and the _Normandy_ was… well, had been something else. Joker wouldn't be anywhere else in the galaxy if someone had promised to restore it. Which evidently, Cerberus had.

Garrus’ eyes flicked back to the pilot, studying the man to see if there was anything off about him, but he was just Joker. He smelled like Joker always smelled: a human male, sharp soap with a vaguely metallic undertone, and the faint scent of constant, but low-key pain. Just Joker: a kid with a chip on his shoulder and a bad case of brittle bones.

Joker stared back as if trying to beam a message directly into his head. After a moment, Garrus nodded. “You couldn’t ask for a better pilot, Shepherd, even if he is a pain in the ass.”

“ _I’m_ the pain in the ass? Oh-ho, that’s rich. What happened to the whole: ‘We need to execute Saren! We can’t waste time bringing him to justice!’” Joker’s approximation of Garrus’ voice was several octaves too high. He dropped into a lower register, making hand motions that Garrus supposed might have been a mouth, or a puppet of some sort. Humans were weird. “‘Yes Garrus, that’s literally the plan, Garrus. You are literally the only one who would consider arresting Saren, Garrus.”

Garrus’ mandibles twitched. Yep, same old Joker.

Shepard chuckled. “I think I’m gonna like you, kid,” she said, tossing him a grin.

“Just wait till you walk in on him watching porn in the cockpit, Captain.” Joker leveled Garrus with a glare.

“How did I end up working with the only turian in the galaxy who think’s he’s funny?”

“Lovely,” Shepard said, her tone sour and impatient as she waved off their bickering. “Can I see it now?”

“The porn, Captain?” Joker stood up a little straighter.

“The ship, former Flight Lieutenant Moreau. The ship.”

“Sure, but she needs a name.”

Garrus inhaled sharply. Joker was going to want to call it the _Normandy_ , he know, but somehow it felt wrong, like they were dishonoring Fisher’s memory. To invoke the Spirits of the _Normandy_ without Fisher at the helm… it was asking for bad luck.

Shepard turned to study the ship. “Looks to be double the size of the original.”

“She’s _better_ than the original Normandy. She’s my baby, back and better than ever.”

Garrus never understood the human obsession with identifying ships as female, especially after he’d learned that human women had been excluded from serving on ships since before they had even had spaceflight. Sometimes trying to think with human logic hurt his brain.

Shepard paced, glancing at the sleek SR-2 out the viewport. “The Alliance names their boats after famous Earth battles. Asari High Command often name their ships after philosophical concepts… the _Destiny Ascension_ … The _Affeld D’lar._ ” Shepard turned to Miranda. “How does Cerberus name their ships?”

“The first assigned Captain of each vessel choses the name,” came the crisp reply.

Shepard turned to Joker, cutting his opinion into nothing more than a squawk with a pointed finger. “I will _not_ name my ship after a dead man’s vessel.”

“Good. Let the Spirits of the _Normandy_ rest,” Garrus rumbled in approval. “This ship needs a better name that some other ancient Earth battle, though.”

Shepard tossed Garrus a sliver of a smile, edged with mischief as she turned her back on the team to face the viewport again, and he knew in that moment that she’d already picked a name. She was _toying_ with Joker, maneuvering him into engaging with her, building an odd sort of rapport that would keep the pilot guessing.

“Tell me about your ship, former Flight Lieutenant Moreau. What’s there to love?” Shepard had her back to the room, studying the smooth, narrow silhouette of the SR-2. One hand wrapped around her other armored wrist, and she stoot at ease, bare head tilted to one side.

“She’s one of the fastest frigates in the galaxy. The only ship of human-turian design-- she’s different. Throws convention out the window. And… she’s gone-- well, the old _Normandy_ went places and saw things that’d give your nightmares nightmares.”

Shepard chuckled, back still to them all. “I don’t know, Joker. At this point I think my nightmares are having great great grandchildren.”

Joker made an impatient noise in the back of his throat. “Look, Captain, we fought geth, rachni, an actual Reaper… C’mon, you should know all this shit from Garrus.”

 _She would have, if both of us hadn’t been so damn dense. Or so damn afraid._ He couldn’t help the regret that was brimming over into bitterness at the thought.

“--whatever name you chose, Captain, it better be a good one. I’m not calling her _Shippy._ ” Joker finished his tirade and crossed his arms, chin jutting stubbornly as he waited to hear her decision and presumably argue it.

Garrus barely caught the small sigh that escaped her lips. She was silent for a moment, and he could almost feel power gathering around her like she was about to light up blue with biotics. Then she turned and smiled, looking not a Joker, not at Miranda, but at Garrus.

When she spoke, her words had the strange, dreamy cadence of recitation.

“ _There is no beast, no rush of fire, like woman so untamed. She calmly goes her way where even panthers would be shamed._ ”

She blinked slowly, her smile widening when he dipped his head, mandibles fluttering as his translator struggled to parse human verse.

“What is that from?”

“Lines from an old Greek play about a woman who ended a war through unconventional means. Miranda, please put _Lysistrata_ SR-2 as the callsign on the ship registry.”

“ _Lysistrata_? Seriously?” Joker nearly squeaked.

“The first thing you’ll need to learn about me Joker, is that I’m always serious, especially when I’m being funny.”

“ _Lysistrata.”_ Garrus tested the name of Shepard’s new ship, rolling it around in his mouth, even if he felt he was missing a joke. It felt good. It felt very… her. “I like it.”

~~~

“Set a course for Omega, Joker. We’re getting the hell out of here.” Shepard had one hand on the back of the pilot’s chair.

“You can send the command from the CIC you know,” Joker said, eyes fixed steadily on the sensors. Garrus stood at Shepard’s left, torn between staring out the viewport and watching to see what Shepard would do next.

“I prefer to be a bit more hands on,” Shepard said, suppressing a grin.

“I’ve noticed,” Joker said, shooting Garrus a look before he locked his eyes back on the controls. “You’re stressing Jacob the hell out, I’ll tell you that much.”

That much was true, at least-- Shepard had torn through the ship like a gale-force wind, knocking procedures and protocol askew, Cerberus crewmembers scrambling to adjust their expectations and operations in her wake.

Garrus had some changes to suggest-- namely removing the huge target of a Cerberus logo from the hull of the ship, and upgrading the main battery, but there would be time for that once they rendezvoused with the rest of the crew on Omega and planned their next steps, away from prying ears and eyes.

Shepard had plans for the _Lysistrata_ as well-- namely rectifying the staggering amount of wasted space on the crew and command decks.

Jacob had nearly had a stroke when she’d ordered him to move the entire armory down to the shuttle bay so they could retrofit the room behind the CIC for proper private cabins.

“Vortash can oversee the retrofits,” Shepard had said, and Garrus had agreed. He’d done a fine job on the _Veritas_ \-- the man never say much, but he knew his way around a toolbox and a blowtorch.

Jacob skittered off to relocate the armory, and Miranda was doing Spirits knew what in her private berth, so it was now just Shepard, Garrus, Sensat and Weaver stood in the cockpit as they prepared to disembark. The bridge was roomy enough, but Joker was still scowling in a tell-tale way as Weaver peered out the viewport at the disembarking procedures.

“So is this a party boat or the bridge of a warship?” He grumbled, stabbing a finger at the controls. The docking mags clanked on the hull, and the ship shuddered to life. “Who are you people, anyway?” He shot Sensat in particular a glare.

Garrus didn’t say anything, waiting for Shepard to speak for them. She was the Captain, and a turian didn’t speak over the Captain of a warship-- but Shepard gave Garrus the barest nod-- permission to speak. It was strange, looking to her for leadership after months of… whatever their relationship had been before.

“Joker, this is Sensat, and Weaver.” He realized he didn’t know Sensat’s clan name, or Weaver’s given name. There were no ranks, no titles. He had to say something… “Sensat is a combat and small arms expert. Weaver is a biotic and a combat engineer. They work for me. For Archangel.” “Howdy,” Weaver said. Sensat made a low grunt that passed as a hello.

Joker mouthed the word ‘Archangel’ as his fingers danced over the controls, and outside of the viewport, Minutemen Station dropped away as the _Lysistrata_ lighted into empty space.

A small hand slipped into his, and he managed to tear himself away from the distant stars and anxious thoughts about Archangel, and command, and the future for just a moment. He looked down to find Shepard-- _Nym_ smiling gently up at him and the image he had if her in his mind’s eye went doube-- he saw a Captain… a commander with a fierce determination and a will that allowed her to stare into the impossible and make sense of it, and he saw a woman stripped of walls and secrets, a woman who he… loved.

It was not the first time he’d thought it, but it was the first time that it felt _real._ It was the first time he’d thought it, and she’d been there, holding his hand, not in pain and unafraid, but instead moving forward to some impossible future, together.

At least… he hoped.

“Estimated time to the relay, sixteen hours,” the cool, modulated voice of the ship’s VI announced over the ship’s comms.

Shepard dropped his hand, coming forward to peer at an odd, bulbous hologram that had appeared on the left of Joker’s dash.

“Oh yeah, and then there’s _that,_ ” Joker muttered.

“The ship’s VI?” Shepard asked.

“Guess again,” he muttered.

“I am the _Lysistrata’s_ Enhanced Defence Intelligence, or E-D-I,” the computer said.

“An AI?” Weaver came up beside Shepard to peer at the hologram, and Garrus felt his heart sink. It was bad enough they were flying version 2.0 of the Normandy, complete with Cerberus detailing, but an AI?

“I was developed by Cerberus in order to supplement organic response time to aerial combat. Additionally I serve ship-to-ground communications on away missions, and support the crew aboard the _Lysistrata._ ”

“Where are you located on the ship?”

“My main processors are a quantum blue box housed in an AI core behind the medical bay.”

Shepard peppered the AI with questions about her programing and behavior parameters, all while Joker made ugly faces and puppet motions as the AI responded in clear, polite tones.

“Very well, EDI. Can I call you EDI?” She pronounced the letters like a word, ee-dee, and the hologram’s vertical speech-representation interface fluttered slightly, giving the impression of surprise. Shepard smiled. “I can’t say having an AI spying on the _Lysistrata_ makes me comfortable, but since you’re basically hardwired into every functional aspect of the ship...”

“Technically, I _am_ the _Lysistrata,_ Captain. It would take extensive reprogramming of the ship to remove me from its systems while maintaining baseline functionality.” Shepard exchanged a glance with Garrus, who shrugged. AI were not an easy sell, but shackled and tied to the ship itself, it seemed there was nothing they could do but make use of it.

Apparently Shepard came to a similar conclusion, though he could almost see the mechanisms ticking along in her head as she calculated. Or perhaps the better word was _schemed._

“Comm me when we’re about to hit the relay,” she told Joker, and spun on her heel.

An “Aye, aye,” chased them out of the cockpit, and Shepard didn’t stop until she reached the elevator.

“They’re listening to everything we’re saying at this point, so I might as well just stop worrying about it.” She looked at Garrus, who found himself at a loss with what to do with his hands. After a moment, he slipped into his C-Sec at ease, the stance coming easily to him despite that it had been nearly a year since he had stood in such a pose.

Nearly a year where _he_ had been in command, and Shepard had followed… well, sort of followed. Run parallel. But now… her ship, her crew. But where did that leave Sensat and Weaver? Where did that leave him.

“Neither of you joined up with Cerberus. I’m not your Commander,” she said slowly, eyes fixing on them. “As far as I’m concerned, Vakarian still holds that honor. That said… you’d be doing me a huge favor if you could start debugging the ship, and cross check the armory. If that’s all right with… with Garrus, of course.” She raised an eyebrow at him.

He needn't have worried.

“You heard the Captain,” he rumbled, and Sensat straightened up. “We’ll head down to cargo.”

The elevator chimed once, and Miranda spilled out, giving both Sensat and Weaver a wide berth as she passed.

“Ah, Operative Lawson. Just the XO I wanted to see. Miranda’s smile was tight lipped, a sure sign that Shepard was rapidly getting on her nerves.

 _Good_ , came the vindictive thought. _I doubt we even know a fraction of what you and Cerberus have done to her._ Garrus felt himself grow a few inches and cross his arms as he attempted to loom behind Shepard as she smiled at Miranda.

“So I’ve see the antiproton thrusters, an eezo core that’s size of a small moon… and oh, I met the AI! Any other surprises we should know about?”

Miranda shook her head. “You met the E.D.I. then, good.”

“You didn’t think to... you know... mention it?”

“I didn’t see the relevance. It is part of the ship. You want the ship? You take the AI. The E.D.I will help you run the ship more efficiently, and will prove invaluable when facing off against the Collectors again. With the edge we've given the SR-2, we might actually win this fight.”

Garrus felt Shepard gather herself, taking a deep breath before exhaling. “And it didn’t cross someone's mind that maybe giving me a ship built on stolen Alliance plans, registered to a known terrorist organization, and installed with an AI that violates several Galactic treaties, let _alone_ disqualifying us from passing any sort of customs regs in _any_ port might make my job _more_ difficult? At this point we won’t be able to land anywhere _but_ Omega.”

“Ah,” Miranda said. “Yes. This is something our team can--”

“No, Lawson. Not your team. My team. Officer Vakarian’s team. We’ll be rectifying Cerberus’s fatal oversights. Just be sure to make your reports to Tim all regular like, and we’ll all be happy. But remember this is _my_ mission, and we do it my way. So, I’ll ask again. Any other surprises I should know about?”

Miranda sighed. “No, Shepard. At this point, what you see is what you get. Don’t forget, Cerberus wants you to succeed. We might not always have seen eye to eye, but we’re not the enemy. The Collectors and the Reapers are.”

“Sure, Miranda. Road to hell, best intentions, all that." She waved her hand at the XO. "Dismissed.”

The elevator slid open, and he hesitated as she stepped into the car.

“You coming?” Her words lacked the same harshness she’d used on Miranda, but he could still see the lines of frustration in her shoulders, the way she carried her arms.

“If you want the company,” he said. She nodded, and a sudden mixture of terror and relief surged through him as he stepped into the car. Garrus hadn't been sure if she’d want him up in her private quarters, not with the crew watching her every move, not with her predilection towards privacy, and with everything she’d been through in the past two weeks. He wouldn’t blame her if she wanted to be alone.

Nym jabbed the button for the loft, and the door slid shut.

With a rush of a sigh, she collapsed against the wall of the elevator, one gauntleted hand going to pinch her temples while the other braced on her knee.

“What the hell. What the actual, absolute hell,” she muttered.

Garrus trilled in concern, taking a step forward. “What? What is it? Pain, or...”

“This. All of this. Giving me a ship based on stolen Alliance plans, with a crew that’s half composed of ex-Alliance soldiers who _served_ on that same ship before it got blown up. The ship _you_ served on. Tell me this isn’t some fresh hell someone’s invented just for us.... because it’s too good to be true. And too _weird._ ”

Garrus nodded slowly. “We’re in an awkward spot here. Cerberus isn’t going to make things easy… but... “

“But?”

“This ship, Shepard. It’s bizarre, and crazy, and I can’t really believe that it exists, but… We could do anything with this ship.”

“This ship,” she agreed. “She’s incredible.”

He took a step towards her and she pushed off the wall, towards him. He placed a talon under her chin and tilted it up, his head snaked down to peer into her eyes. “So is her Captain. Incredible. And also kind of terrifying. I think you succeeded in traumatizing Jacob, Miranda _and_ Joker.”

She took his hand and pressed it to her cheek. “Good. I need them scared-- of me, of the mission. At least to start.” She sighed again and dropped her head to thunk onto his armored his shoulder. “It’s all an act.” If he didn’t know any better, Garrus would swear she sounded guilty _._

“I know,” he said. “And it’s an important one. But you don’t have to act with me.”

“I know. And I don’t,” she sighed. “You get every ugly, broken, incompetent little moment of-- hey!”

Garrus had heard enough. He ducked down, arms snaking around her waist, armor clanking, and ceramic grating as he tossed her over her shoulder with a grunt. Shepard shrieked and he gripped her thighs tight to one side of his keel as she wriggled, trying, and failing, to escape.

“Put me _DOWN_!” Her fists beat on his carapace without much conviction as the the elevator door hissed open.

“I’m tempted. Spirits, you’re _heavy._ Must be all those new implants rattling around in there. What did they give you, heavy bone weave? Crazy.”

“Vakarian-- ugh... Garrus!”

He’d never get tired of hearing her say his name. The sound if it, of hearing his name in her voice, exasperated and trying not to laugh, sent tendrils of warmth creeping up his spine and into his chest, squeezing at his heart.

He crossed the entryway in two strides, and the door to the loft quarters hissed open onto a suite that looked more like something out of a high-end Citadel hotel than a Captain's berth on a warship.

“Woah,” Garrus muttered coming to an abrupt halt. The drumming on his back stopped as well, and Shepard shifted on his shoulder, lifting her head from its downward angle.

“What the hell is this?” She sounded scandalized. “Is that an… aquarium? Do you know how much water… how much power that requires?”

The cabin was as sleek as the rest of the ship, decked out in cool charcoal and white. There was a workspace with a terminal and a desk, with a baren display case and some empty shelves. A few steps lead down into a sunken floor where an enormous bed dominated the rest of the room. There was closet and workbench for armor and uniforms, and a couch. The whole room was cast in blue light from an empty, gently bubbling fish tank.

Garrus actually quite liked the whole setup. Especially the bed. He stood there for a moment, Nym over one shoulder, and then she wriggled again, trying to get free from his grip now that his attention had slipped.

“Oh no you don’t,” he said, and his arm tightened around her thighs as she kicked and squeaked-- actually squeaked. He marched down the three steps to the bed, where he leaned forward and dumped her, ass-first. “There. Better.”

She bounced a little as she settled, glaring at him, but he didn’t miss the little upward pull at the corner of her mouth. “You can’t just manhandle me like that and then toss me into bed every time I get a little salty, you know.”

“I can try,” he said. “Besides, landing in bed always seems to cheer you up.”

She stuck out her tongue, small and pink and wet, and Garrus pretended to shudder. “It’s so _short._ Just like you.”

“I’m actually pretty tall, you know.”

“For a human.” He held up his hand at chest height, a foot lower than she actually fell on him. “Spirits… if you were a short human you’d be…” a little trill of a laugh escaped, “so tiny.”

“Tiny or not, we have a lot of work to do.” She fell back on the bed, armor creaking, and Garrus forced his mind away from the path it was currently treading down at a merry jog, a path that would lead to them shucking that armor and getting skin on plate and damn who was watching, or how much they had to do.

“Yeah,” he sighed. Still, his mind was still determinedly set on the path of Nym’s body in his hands, the sound of her pleasure, the scent of their mingled desire… His thoughts lifted from a brisk jog to a run as his eyes raked the contours of her new armor. Honestly, if he was allowed to have a preference, he liked her commando leathers more, but this set bulked her up and nipped in her waist with flexible ballistic fibers that he could sink his talons into and...

“What are we going to do with all this, Garrus?” She sat up a bit, shaking her head as she studied him. "Damn, but this ship must seem like a bad penny to you."

"Bad penny?"

"Something that's always showing up at the worst times... though I suppose that describes Cerberus more than the _Normandy_ 2.0. Fisher's death couldn't have been easy on you. You okay?"

Garrus was silent for a moment, thinking. No, Fisher's death hadn't been easy on him. Losing the _Normandy_ had not been easy, but he'd lost his place long before the Collectors had destroyed the ship. Caught between wanting to fly with Fisher and wanting to serve his duty, he'd never really picked either. "It's absurd. I feel like I'm still waiting to wake up back in some shitty hotel room on Omega but... it's amazing. I feel like I've come home."  
  
"It must be amazing to see it again. I can't even imagine."

He nodded. "It's not just the ship, though. It's that you're here, too." 

Her laugh sounded surprised, and he flashed her a smile before turning in a small circle to study the room, willing his brain to stop thinking about what she’d feel like when he got to pin her up against the aquarium glass and they'd fuck each other senseless. 

“Hold that thought," he said. "I’m going to sweep for bugs.”

 

**Shepard**

Garrus searched the cabin like a varren who’d caught the scent, sniffing out every possibility with the utmost focus, occasionally fiddling with his visor as he scanned the room.

Shepard joined in the search with less enthusiasm. She hunted half heartedly on hands and knees, looking inside cabinets and under the console on the desk. At this point, Cerberus didn’t need bugs to spy on them when they had an AI running the ship. Finding a few bugs here and would be a moot point with the AI listening to literally every word every last person uttered on the ship. She had no doubt that the Illusive Man would be getting full reports on everything from the cleanliness of her socks to how many times a day she took a shit.

Besides, her mind was on other problems, like the whole mess of now being part of Cerberus _at all_ , and having command of an entire ship. An entire ship based off of _stolen_ Alliance plans, she reminded herself-- plans for one of the most famous ships ever built by human engineering. Well, human and turian engineering. There was a certain poetry _that_ it, at least, but poetry would do her and Garrus little good when they were arrested and thrown in prison for military-industrial espionage.

And then there was the question of where Archangel fit into it all. They could sort out the squad when they reached Omega-- Shepard suspected nearly all of them would sign up to fight the Collectors as they had already committed to Garrus’s anti-Reaper crusade. But what about Garrus? It must be so strange for him to be here. Hell, it was strange for her to be shacked up in the CO’s quarters of a legendary ship-- well, a recreation of a legendary ship. She would make it _hers_ in time, but what she really wanted to know was how the universe (or was it just Cerberus?) had conspired to get her here. And how had Garrus become a part of that conspiracy?

She didn’t know the answers, but she was grateful that it had, and that he was here with her.

Shepard popped up from her hands and knees and flicked imaginary dust from her armor. She’d noticed some extra cabling plugged into her console that she was sure was a wiretap, but decided to leave it. If she knew how Cerberus was getting its information on her she could spoon feed them… Dealing with the AI would be another thing altogether, of course, but it was yet another long term project… which lead her to this.

What was she going to do about being in love with Garrus Vakarian?

She found Garrus on his back with his head turned sideways, hands busy under the couch.

“Found another one. That's four! Spirits, how many mics do they need in this damn room?”

Shepard ignored his question in favor of one of her own. “What do turians call their lovers?”

Garrus sat up so suddenly he smacked his fringe on the coffee table. He rubbed absently at the spot, eyes locking on her as she dropped down the stairs and flung herself onto the couch.

“Uh… they call them... friends? People? Their _names._ Spirits, Shepard… what a question. There’s not really… words unless there's a bond. Or intent to bond.” He looked lost, sitting on the floor with a hand worrying the back of his neck.

“Bond? You mean like… marriage?” Shepard sat up as she tamped down on the panic that spiked in her gut and started leaking into her voice.

His mandibles flared, defensive. “That’s a human concept.”

“Right. But humans don’t just go from sleeping together to married. There’s usually years of in-between stuff, like dating and buying each other presents on their anniversaries, and meeting each other’s families and stuff-- and then humans are just as likely to break it off as get married. Maybe moreso. Humans are a lot like asari with the dating thing. So… do turians have a name for the people they’re courting?”

Garrus rumbled. “It’s a verb-- _vinulas--_ the act of courtship. It means ‘profound change.’ Someone you’re bonding to is _crsai._ Anything other than that is… just sex-- _kian_. There’s friendships and companionship tied up in it too, but like I said, Turians don’t… ‘date.’ Are you asking for a particular reason, or... ?” His eyes bored into her as his hand dropped from his neck to fiddle with the tiny microphone he was holding.

“Yeah,” she sighed. “I’m not trying to freak you out… or freak _myself_ out, but I want to figure us out. I want to know what to call you. How I should… think of you. How should we think of each other? I don’t know. I’m not really any good at being a human, but my instincts say I need… we need something. A word.”

“You can’t be _crsai_ because you’re not turian. And I would never… _never_ bond to you without your consent. That is the worst… the _worst_ crime a turian can commit." The look of disgust in his eyes told her something new about turians and how they had relationships. "And I don’t even think we could bond, not with how reactive and… flighty your nervous system is.”

“Flighty? _Me_?”

“Flighty. You. Turians bond physiologically-- I don’t think it’s possible to actually bond with a human unless they had really stable neurochemistry. So, I don’t know. You’re not _crsai_ because we aren’t _vinulas’k._ I don't have any other words than that. You’re Shepard. Nym. You’re just...” There was a word he didn’t want to say, she could tell.

“Just what, Garrus?”

“You’re mine,” he said, looking embarrassed. “Or, I want you to be.” Shepard opened her mouth to-- what? Object? She objected on principle to belonging to someone or something, of being _possessed._ Being _dependant_ or _obligated_.

_You’ve got a ship and a crew under your command now, girly. That’s about as obligated as it gets… and would it be so bad, belonging somewhere for once? Belonging to someone as remarkable as Garrus? And he could... belong to you, too._

Free until chosen. _Profound change_. He wasn't asking for that. As far as she could tell, his feelings were perfectly normal for a turian, and he was trying to figure out what his feelings should be for a perfectly normal turian who was (probably) in love with a very... not normal human.

She closed her mouth slowly, and Garrus pressed on when he saw her hesitate, mandibles flicking in agitation. “If we can’t bond… then you’re just… mine. You’ll do what you need to do, love me however you need to… and I’ll make as much space for you to do that as I possibly can. And I’ll love you back, as much as I possibly can.”

She pressed her lips together as she felt a knot form in her throat at the raw honesty of his words. _You picked a real winner, Vakarian. You deserve so much better._

Undaunted, he pressed on. ”Maybe… maybe there’s a human word. Weaver said that humans have lots of names for people they’re involved with. Honestly ze rattled off so many it all went a bit above my head… though I remember something like sweetie? Baby _?_ It was sort of... infantilizing.” His nose wrinkled in distaste.

“Yeah. Humans do that. They've also got so many words for the same thing that they hardly mean anything. Let’s see... there’s others. Lover. Boyfriend or girlfriend. Partner. Significant other.”

“ _Boyfriend?”_ He sounded incredulous. “How is that a special name at all? I have a lot boyfriends.” He frowned, tried again. “Male friends. Friends who are men.” He teased out the meaning of the word as his translator parsed it, and Shepard choked back a laugh.

“I’d like to meet these boyfriends,” she managed. She didn't doubt he'd actually had a boyfriend or two back in the day-- boyfriend or whatever it was that turians had. Male lover. Pansexuality was another thing they shared.

Garrus opened his mouth, but she held up her hand. “It’s not just a friend of a specific gender. It’s sort of shorthand for… an important friend who is male. Someone who has a romantic and… well, often a sexual connection, but not someone I’m married to. It implies intentional commitment without the legal permanence of marriage… or _vinulas_ … or a bond… thing. Whatever commitment a couple has towards each other… they decided on. Together. That’s how humans do it. Well, a lot of humans.”

“So…. am I your boyfriend?”

Shepard felt her mouth curl up into a little smile. It sounded stupid calling a turian "boyfriend," but damn did she want Garrus to be her… _something_. If there wasn’t a good enough word for it, she’d take boyfriend. They could think of something better, later, when Cerberus wasn’t eavesdropping on them.

Later. Always later. Shepard needed something now.

He was staring at her from his spot on the floor, so earnest and intent on hearing the answer it nearly killed her. It really wasn’t fair, how blue his eyes were.

“If you want to be,” she managed, unable to stop the little laugh that escaped her.

Garrus stared at her for a moment longer, mandibles giving another twitch of surprise. Then he grinned and picked up the mic he’d been toying with. “Did you hear that, Cerberus? I’m Shepard’s boyfriend.”

Shepard’s laugh caught her off guard, a shoulder shaking chuckle that ripped from her chest as a shit-eating grin spread across her face. She felt suddenly lighter than the had in months… in years.

Garrus’s eyes never left her, and that voice… well, the odds were really stacked against her with a voice like that: warm and smoky and layered with textures that spoke of deep feeling, and just the slightest touch of joy. The way he said  _boyfriend_ invested it with so much more meaning than the word had ever held for her before. 

 _Shit_. She loved him.

Shepard slid over so she was sitting above him on the couch, and pulled the hand with the mic towards her. She deepened her voice, wiping the shit-eating grin from her face in favor of an expression with a bit more gravitas.

“Congratulations, Officer Vakarian. We at Cerberus wish you the utmost joy and happiness in your new relationship. We’ll try not to be too much of a pain in the ass.”

Garrus grinned at her as she dropped the mic back into his hand. He pinched the bug between two talons, crushing it with a small crunch and a brief squeal of feedback and tossed it aside.

She flopped back against the couch, heart suddenly a few sizes too big for her chest, lungs catching but unable to hold any air, and she managed another breathless laugh.

“Boyfriend,” she breathed, and Garrus rumbled an affirmative, leaning into the couch, looking up at her.

Her hands went to his fringe and stroked along the top the protruding spikes, running her fingers lightly over the fantastic texture of his skin. Her calloused fingertips picked up flecks and bumps in his hide, like no material she could really compare it to-- not quite leather, or fiberglass, or unburnished steel… wrapped in raw silk. She felt a rumble as he started his intoxicating turian purr, and tipped his head forward so she could reach under his fringe.

“I need a decent _abrate_ ,” he rumbled, eyes closed as she explored the back of his neck with increasing enthusiasm. “Shouldn’t be all rough like that.”

“You need a good grooming, huh?”

He grunted, cracked an eye open and looked over his shoulder at her. “Between chasing you around the galaxy and wrangling the Archangel crazies, you’d be amazed how little time I have to do things like sand my fringe or file my talons.” Shepard felt a stab of guilt lance through her gut, bright and electric and _painful_. Selfish, damn selfish. She leaned over his fringe, pulling his head into her lap as she continued to explore his face, mapping the contours of his mandibles and the hard lines around his eyes.

“I saw a shower in the bathroom, if you need--”

“No, I’m all right.” He closed his eyes again. “Water won’t do it. Really, I’m just tired. The kind of tired that comes from relief. Spirits, Shepard. I thought you were dead. I mean… I knew, deep in my gut that you weren’t, but… Spirits, getting that message...”

Her fingers didn’t stop, but she leaned down to press her forehead to his, upside down. She could feel the rumbling of his subvocals vibrating her skull, a comforting humm she didn’t deserve.

“I’m so sorry, Garrus.” His hand reached up to worry the stubble behind her ear, and she made her own little noise of contentment, tinged with sadness.

“I know you are,” he said. With a groan, he shifted and stood, lifting his bulk off the floor and pulled Nym to her feet. He one hand didn’t let go of her's, and his other found the back of her neck, slipping under the collar of her armor to find skin. “Just… don’t do these crazy things without me anymore. You’re so powerful and competent it scares me. I know you can take care of yourself, but you don’t _have_ to do things alone. Even if I don’t always agree with you, we can talk it out. Plan _together_. You can tell me anything. Okay?”

She looked down, studying the way his three fingers and palm enveloped her entire hand, past her wrist and half way up her gauntlet. When she thought about it, the difference in size between them was remarkable-- intimidating.

“Okay,” she said, forcing the word out like it was afraid of the light, her eyes locked on their intertwined hands.

“And I’m not just saying that because… because I’m your _boyfriend_.” The word boyfriend made a smile tug on one corner of her mouth. “Or because I love you.” Her eyes shot up to find him studying her, mandibles flared wide and eyes bright. “Because I do. Love you. You can tell me anything because I respect the hell out of you… and I... we’re a team. Okay?”

“Okay.” The second time she said it, it was easier. Held and uplifted by his eyes, glacial blue and crystallizing, it was easier. “Yeah. A team.”

Their foreheads met a moment later, and Garrus rumbled in approval-- a kind of relieved groan that spoke of his exhaustion.

“Kiss me,” he whispered, voice strained, almost broken, and she did, raising her chin as he lowered his head until their mouths met in a rush of warm breath and small desperate noises. The kiss was a warm, careful study of how their mouths did, and did not fit together, lips and plates meeting and exploring, but they stopped far short of _fitting_. It didn’t matter. He smelled like the rainforest and tasted like home.

“There’s too much armor between us,” he said against her mouth. “I want to feel you, _keili_.”

She huffed a little laugh, pulled away. “ _Keili_? Isn’t that a fruit?”

 _Keili_ was what he’d said she’d tasted like when they’d kissed up on the roof of Base… gods, what felt like years ago, back when the loss of her biotics was just starting to sink in. Had they really gone so long without talking things through? Had he loved her as far back as that?

Gods… Goddess, Spirits, _whatever._ She was an _idiot_.

“Yep. A spiky, sour, prickly fruit. I thought it was fitting, seeing as that’s how you taste. And act.” The wryness in his words did not go unnoticed. She bit his neck in reprisal, which earned her a happy growl.

“So turians do nicknames, huh?” She considered the spot on his neck she’d been worrying at with her teeth, and kissed him there, feeling his pulse and the rumble of his voice against her lips.

“Not really, but I know humans do. Weaver said humans in relationships call each other all sorts of food-related nicknames. I think one was ‘cupcake,’ but I don’t know what that is, so _keili_ feels a little safer.”

“I might stop getting all of your human relationship information from Weaver,” she managed, and he chuffed. “But... stupid nicknames are definitely on the boyfriend agenda. Good job.”

Looking pleased with himself, he kissed her again and pushed seals to her chestplate, which popped open with a hiss. Thirty seconds later they were both naked to the waist and kissing again, bits of armor scattered at their feet. She could see his erection tenting through his undersuit, and she brought her body in close, pressing her hips against his as he traced her scars and tugged her suit from her hips.

The scars ran in a webbed pattern across her body, glowing a faint orange, and she rubbed at her arms when they met the cool, dry air of the cabin, suddenly self conscious.

“Do they hurt?” He asked, reaching out to touch the bright line of orange that passed up her breast bone.

“Almost?” She said, leaning into the touch. “They feel warm, slightly itchy. Go ahead. They’re closed wounds.” Garrus’s thumb raced the scar up to where it stopped at the hollow of her throat. She felt her pulse flutter there, as his talons found the beat of her jugular and then traced an intersecting line of orange light down to where a different scar rode just below her shoulder like a badge of honor. His bite mark, that night at the base, after his disastrous run in with the Blue Suns, the night Aria had given her the Collector data.

 _Mine._ His words echoed back to her, and she shivered.

“They’re kind of beautiful,” he said

“Still digging the scars, huh? I’m afraid they’re gonna get old real fast. As is being bald.”

“No, they won’t. And it doesn't matter what your hair is like. Long, short, curly… gone. Everything about you is beautiful. I should have told you that a million times over by now. Even before, when we'd just met… that night at Afterlife. You were chewing on that little fruit, and I couldn’t stop watching your mouth… your hands. I’ve always thought you were beautiful. I just… never thought you’d want to hear it.”

Saccharine words, ripped from his chest and laid bare before her. He was afraid to say too much, afraid he might scare her off. Again. She didn’t deserve this man. Not one bit-- but she knew that now, and she’d do better. At least… she’d try.

“You’re right, I suppose,” she said. “Saying so might have sent me running before… but… it’s funny… I don’t…” He was nuzzling at her neck, inhaling the smell of her, and she lost her train of thought.

“You don’t… what?”

“I don’t mind… so much now. You thinking I’m beautiful. In fact, I’d say…” she inhaled sharply as his tongue tasted the shell of her ear, running a hand over the stubble that spread across her scalp and she shivered, getting overwhelmed by the siege he was waging on her senses. “I’d say it was rather important to me that you think those sorts of things about... “ She shuddered as his blunted talons drew lines down her flank, rippling over the new textures of her scars as he made a pass down her body, driving her backwards, and her words failed. She tried again. “That you think those things about… about me.” She stretched up to meet him now, hovering between uncertainty and pleasure and he started to rumble deep in his chest, warm and encouraging. “And, Garrus?”

The rumble in his chest deepened when she said his name. His hands convulsed around her elbows, eyes burning her like ice. “I think you’re beautiful, too.” She kissed the underside of his mandible, tracing her lips up towards his cheek. “You’re brilliant, and so patient, and loyal, and I don’t … deserve you.”

He moved faster than she thought possible. He had hold of her arms, and spun her around, landing her against side of the aquarium with a satisfying smack of skin on glass. She gasped a laugh as the chill of the glass against her bare stomach and breasts made goosebumps ripple across her body, and shivered, giving into the sensation of cold of the fish tank in front of her, and the heat radiating from his forge-hot body pressed close behind.

“Garrus, what--”

He drew her wrists up above her head. He could fit both her wrists in one hand with room to spare, and his hand tightened while the other pressed against the small of her back, pushing her flush with the glass so she shivered again. “Never,” he breathed, his mouth hot on her ear. “Never say that.”

“Say what, that I don’t--”

“I said, _never_.” He growled the word, sending her to a place . She didn’t say anything for a moment, just let hang between the cool glass and his burning skin. “Is that an order?” Her breath misted against the glass, the condensation expanding and the retreating with each breath.

“Damn right it’s an order.”

“Very well…” It seemed they had their first rule.

He trailed his next words down her spine like little offerings on some alter. “You deserve… everything I can give you. I can’t give you even _half_ of what you deserve.”

His tongue teased the little dimple above her ass and then he nipped up spine until he was at her neck again, worrying her ear. His breathing was ragged as hers, and she could just see his eyes shot with on the periphery of her vision, which was mostly taken up with the rush and sigh of bubbles from the aquarium. She strained to lean into him and felt his erection shift at the juncture of his thighs.

Garrus growled, low, dangerous, and his grip on her wrists became almost painful, stretching her arms up so she had to rise on her toes to keep from stumbling

_Fuck… yes. More._

He stopped.

“Shepard-- damn. Nym?” He hesitated, and she made a little sound of curiosity, trying to get her butt back into his lap with no success as she tottered on her bare toes.

“Problem?”

“I’m--” he paused, cleared his throat. “I’m feeling like a selfish bastard right now,” he managed, and his hands slackened around her wrists just slightly. “You were gone, and I thought… you were dead, or running and… now you’re not dead, and not running and it’s hard for me to…” He huffed, thinking. “It’s hard for me not to just pin you down and take you, and I don’t want to hurt you.”

“Hurt me? Garrus, this is my fucking happy place. And with you… it’s… I swear to the gods, Spirits, the Goddess, _whoever_ , if you don’t do exactly what you just said, I’ll have to take over this little operation, and--”

Her words were cut off as his hands tightened on her wrists once more and he pressed against her, growling into her ear.

“That’s all I needed to know,” he purred, and her knees became unreliable.

She felt him fumble behind her for a moment, ostensibly freeing his erection from his undersuit, and then his fingers were at her cunt, where he found her wet-- not just wet, but _dripping._ He wasn’t far behind, either, she noted as he pressed his slick cock against her ass. Self lubricating turians… the wonders of the galaxy would never cease. He slipped a finger inside and she shuddered as she stretched to accommodate him, one, and then two fingers. He warmed her up, teasing and pushing more deeply into her and then, evidently that was enough… he withdrew, adjusted so the tip of his cock rubbed against her cunt, and thrust his hips, hard and sharp.

She cried out, both surprised and greedy for him. There was rush of sudden pain as he buried himself inside of her faster than her body could accommodate, and then there was not-pain, but sweet fullness as he twitched inside of her, letting free a low, guttural groan and then… a sweeter, softer sound.

“Nym,” he managed, choking on the single syllable. Her name. It was the sweetest sound in the world.

She breathed his name, back, her breath condensing on the glass in sharp gasps, and he drove into her, hard and sharp and relentless, dropping her wrists in favor of the back of her neck and her hips, talons raising welts across her skin. Her fingers scrambled for purchase against the glass and found none, trapped between the serene bubbling of 600 gallons of water, and Garrus’s relentless onslaught.

He punished her, employing talons and his teeth he rendered her a sputtering mess, half sobbing and half mewling out in pleasure, begging for more, begging for him to go harder. Whatever Cerberus had done to her body, it certainly expanded the possibilities of pleasure-pain, the applications of turian talons and razored teeth on her back, her neck, the amount of punishment her bones could take when crushed between turian and glass, and Garrus kept pushing, harder…

She spasmed, groaned into her release, but Garrus didn’t slow, or stop, or give her a rest. A minute later, she climaxed again, shuddering around him, and he joined her, huffing and growling into her neck. She lost all sense, her cries quieted to little mewls and he pulled away for a moment, spun her around so her back was to the glass. She tried to protest at the loss of contact, but her voice was gone, lost to shudders and hiccoughing cries as she reached for him and shivered against the cold that was now at her back, even more disorienting. This time, at least, her hands found purchase on his cowl and her legs locked around his waist as he buried himself in her again. She couldn’t focus, her head loling into one of his, grasping supportive hands, a gentle counterpoint to the rest of his body against hers. She lost all sense of where she was as he fucked her, and simply clung to his rough carapace. She couldn't tell if she was standing or being held, lost which way was up or if she was underwater or floating somewhere gently above an atmosphere until another orgasum made the world burst into white.

Her orgasm hit her like a flashbang, the world overexposed and spinning with harsh after images and a persistante wine in her ears, as her senses gave up on sorting through the overstimulation, submitting to senselessness and the freedom that came with it as she bottomed out into nothingness, a sense of the infinite rolling through her each aftershock in her cunt, her gut.

Nym became aware of the sensation of being carried, three fingered hands tipped in cool talons against her face, checking her vitals and running fingers through hair that wasn’t there over and over, and through it all, an insatiable purr that guided her back home. A purr, and the sound of her name.

“Nym… come back to me,” he whispered.

She was on the bed, there were hands on her face, tracing her lips and her cheekbones, her chin, and she smiled and opened her eyes. He kneeled above her, hulking in the gloom.

“Holy fuck. When I die, that’s how I want to go. Why’d you stop?”

“ _You_ went limp,” he replied, and she saw the tension flow out of him. “I thought you’d passed out.” He’d been worried.

“Not quite, but close. Next time,” she breathed, “don't stop.”

His thumbs found the dimples above her ass and began stroking the indents over and over, like they were worry stones, and she hummed happily, feeling dreamy, like she was floating somewhere far away, and not sprawled across a bed in the Captain's quarters of Cerberus ship, completely ruined by her turian lover.

 _Boyfriend_ , she reminded herself, and sat up, muscles screaming in protest like she’d run a marathon and then had to fight her way through a Blue Suns base with a sledgehammer as her only weapon. She crawled into his lap, kissing anywhere she could reach, lips swollen and sex still needy and acing.

“Not a bad way to break in the bed,” she gasped, shuddering as she let her thighs fall to either side and he fully seated himself inside again with a groan and an easy thrust. If before was sudden, violent, this time they were deliberate and slow. Her hands roamed the maze of his plated cowl and his neck and he gripped her thighs hard enough to bruise, pushing her down into his lap, pressing deeper into her with each snap of his hips. She shook against his thighs, and his left hand lifted to cup her cheek. She gave him everything, their eyes locked and her lips parted, breath coming short and sharp like there would never be enough air when they were fucking.

Something burned in her chest, her eyes, and she stuttered against him. He faltered as her tears betrayed her, but even as her heart broke with the beauty that was Garrus Vakarain, who loved her, she found his hand and pressed it harder to her cheek.

Another tear spilled, until there were enough to trickle down and dampen their intermingled hands. He leaned forward to taste the wet tracks on her cheek with his tongue, a flicker of blue against the russet flush of her skin.

“Salty,” he murmured. “Almost as good as sour.”

“Kinky,” she laughed. She was crying, but her heart was singing, broken open and unguarded. His dusky blue tongue traced its way up her cheek again as he resumed rocking against her, slow and insistent and something strange and mysterious opened between them. It felt old, unknowable, like the sound of something just out of range of his her hearing, just in the periphery of her vision, or a smell that triggered a memory she couldn’t quite place.

They kissed, and taste of her own salted tears slipped over her lips, and suddenly he was gasping for breath, pushing into and she breathed his name, “Garrus, Garrus,” and he shattered under her hands.

He came hard, rocking his whole body and wrenching a shuddering and painful climax, a crescendo of pleasure and feeling, and she fell after him, foreheads pressed together, his talons spasming on the back of her neck and around her waist.

“Fuck,” she managed after a few long moments of panting science. “Garrus. I love you.” She said the words again, trying them out. “I love you.” She laughed, giddy, high as a kite from endorphins and sex and love.

He squeezed her waist, crest buried in chest, and she could feel his warm breath across her breasts. She kissed his fringe, and he whined, a new turian sound she struggled to define.

“I love you too, Nym,” he said, and gave her nuzzling at her chest. She stoked his fringe, easy as breathing, and his purr was strong enough to rattle her bones.

~~~

“Captain? We’re going to intercept with the relay in twenty minutes.”

“Thank you Joker. See you shortly.” She flicked off the comm and turned back to the datapad.

Shepard leaned against Garrus’s chest as he dozed beside her, nose buried in her neck, one arm around her waist and the other sprawled off the side of the bed. Datapads laid scattered around them, and Shepard frowned and rubbed her eyes. 

They had a lot of work to do yet... She’d sent Garrus a copy of all the data she had on the Collectors for him to examine at his leasure, and they had gone over the dossiers together.

The dossiers were impressive, but they worried her. Cerberus had one on _Garrus,_ and while peering at his ten-years-younger C-Sec mugshot had been both adorable and informative, it made her skin crawl that Cerberus had been investigating him-- technically now _had_ him. Garrus also _knew_ two of the potential recruits listed in the dossiers personally-- Dr. Liara T’Soni, currently of Illium, and and Tali’zorah vas Neema, whom she'd met on Freedom's Progress. It was all getting curiouser and curiouser _._  Garrus had briefed her on both of them, and given her more details on Joker as well, but his eyes told her there was more he wasn’t saying, probably because Cerberus was hanging on their every word.

She hoped they at least enjoyed the show.

Feeling her shift, Garrus stirred, his arms wrapping around her middle and rolling them over so he was spooning her. Shepard shoved the datapads out of the way of their rolling bodies, squirming as he huffed at the back of her neck. Sleepy turian, she’d discovered, was adorable, clingy turian.

“Do we have to?” He mumbled.

“We do,” she said. “As much as I wish we could just skip Omega all together, we need to collect your squad. And since I have this super deluxe and ultra wasteful fish tank here... I need to rescue my fish.”

“About that…”

“What?” She said, trying to turn in his arms, but he just clamped down on her with corded muscle and stubbornness, nuzzling into her neck. “What!”

“Not all of them made it. Should have asked me to feed them for you while you were gone.” She couldn't see his face, but the wryness in his voice was obvious.

She sniffed at the feeling guilt that crept past the humor in his words, even as she struggled trying to escape his embrace, but he just tightened his arms all the more. “Damn it. I’m never living down the past few weeks, am I?”

“Nope,” he murmured into the back of her neck.

“Not even to honor my dear, departed fish?”

“Not even for them. But the rest _do_ need a good old fashioned rescue.” After a moment, he relented his grip, nuzzling the back of her neck one last time before she slipped away, her mind wandering to which armor she should wear: the new Cerberus gear and her old commando leathers?

And then... _ow_. Fifteen or so hours had been long enough for her muscles to grow stiff and sore from their earlier activities. Her body was one delicious ache, and she hissed as eased herself into a stretch, her inner thighs and her calves complaining the loudest. She probably wouldn't have felt this bad even after run through a Blue Sun's base with that sledgehammer. She looked back over her shoulder (even her neck complained) when Garrus made a small chuff of a noise. He sat on the edge of the bed, naked, eyes locked on her hips.

“Spirits…”

“What?”

“Your back. It looks like you got mauled by a varren.”

Nym craned her neck and twisted her hips to try and see the damage. He’d helped her apply the cream that she used to help with the burning cause by their opposite chirality, but it seemed her skin took longer to bruise now, because it hand't been _that_ bad ten hours ago. “I got mauled by a turian, actually. It was fun.” His mandibles flared, just the smallest twitch, and she grinned. “I wanna see properly. Take a picture.”

Garrus made a little rumble in his chest, and a moment later, he had a picture of her naked ass projected from his omnitool.

She pressed into his side and examined the image of a galaxy of bruising on her ass and thighs, and the welts across her back. Her body gave a sympathetic twang. “Holy shit. I looked like I got mauled by a varren.”

“Told you,” he rumbled. “You okay?”

“Me? Yeah. I’m tough. And I’m telling you, I get off on the rough stuff.” She kissed his crest, and was rewarded with the same whine she’d heard a few hours ago. Definitely a happy turian sound. She added it to her catalog of increidble turian things.

She stood, but he grabbed her hand, pulling her back. So, the sleepy turian was still needy. And yet his eyes were serious behind the blue glow of his visor.

“Nym,” he said, and she hummed a query. What was he worried about? “We’ll head in, get the squad, get the fish, and be gone in 48 hours. 48 hours, and we’re done with Omega. For good. Okay?”

“Okay,” she said, and squeezed his hand. In a string of remarkable things he'd said to her over the course of the past 24 hours, that might have been the most simple, and liberating. 

She chose the commando armor. Some things would never change.

Ten minutes later, Shepard leaned on the AI console as the _Lysistrata_ approached the relay. Garrus stood just behind, watching the _Lysistrata’s_ readouts as Joker prepared them for the jump.

The pilot’s hands were busy on the controls, and he spoke into the ship-wie comms. “Op-check is clear. Vector locked for jump to Omega 3 Relay, via Hawking Eta. Hold for jump in three… two… one..”

The relay loomed, almost indistinguishable in the void, but then tendrils of blue fire arched out into space, lashing at the _Lysistrata_ and flung her forward on a corridor of space-time, back towards home.

Moments later, they burst through the Omega 3 Relay. Out of the viewport, Omega’s silhouette became visible, glowing in an unhealthy nimbus blood-orange light that was swallowed by the gloom of the asteroid belt. Shepard wasn't sure if it was her newly enhanced vision, or if Omega had just decided to glow with a particular malevolence at the moment.

Shepard knew this approach all too well, but for the first time… perhaps ever, arrowing back towards Omega did not fill her with a sense of dread. There were good, competent people waiting there for Archangel to return… and she’d be alongside him this time. They’d gather their people, secure their property, cash out, and then, in 48 hours, they’d be gone. Omega couldn’t hold her now.

“I’ll radio the squad, make sure they’re ready for us,” Garrus said. A hand landed on her shoulder, heavy and steadying, and she reached up to squeeze his talons, a giddy little shiver passing through her. She felt him chuff in response, and catalogued yet another happy turian sound into her personal dictionary of Garrus.

“Here we go. EDI?” The hologram sprang to life on their left and Shepard stepped back to give the AI room. Applying concepts of personal space to something that didn't have a physical body was an odd exercise in cognitive dissonance, but Shepard was determined to treat the intelligence like... well.. a person. _Be nice to the robot. The robots recycle the air. The robot can kill you in your sleep, and you'd never even know you were dying._  Gods, Krul was going to lose his little mind when he met EDI. She would have to film it. She could see the ANN headlines now: _Crotchety old Batarian tech savant goes toe-to-toe with with shackled AI, triggers singularity. And war._

“Yes, Captain?” EDI actually  _did_ have lovely voice, though.

“The crew has 48 hours of shore leave. No one is to leave Gozu or Kima districts without clearing it with me. If folks need a safe place to stay, I’ve got some recommendations, but I suggest everyone bunk on the ship. Are our comms synced?”

“Yes, Captain. I will coordinate shore leave and crew recall.”

“Thanks.”

“ETA to Omega intercept, one hour,” Joker announced.

Shepard dropped Garrus’s hand after a final squeeze. “I’m going to go meet some more of the crew before we dock. Meet you at decon in 45. Bring Sensat and Weaver. And uh... Mordin, if he wants to come. I bet Butler would like to see him.”

He gave a sharp little nod, mandibles flaring in a grin that _might_ be categorized as adoring, his eyes lingering on her in a way that could _definitely_ be categorized as unprofessional. She strode back towards the CIC, trying not to limp and definitely trying not to blush as she started on her first informal crew rounds on the _Lysistrata,_ the feeling of Garrus’s eyes locked on her back causing a radiating warmth in her stomach that not even the sickly red-orange light of Omega’s silhouette could diminish.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The name of the Lysistrata SR-2 is from the [play](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysistrata) of the same name, in which a woman wins a war by convincing a bunch of other women to deny men sex if they continued to fight. While not totally in line with Shepard's .... methods, she at least thinks she's hilarious. 
> 
> As always, a huge thank you to [TheAmazingBlue_J](http://archiveofourown.org/users/TheAmazingBlue_J) for beta-ing and also for brainstorming Greek names of the SR-2 and coming up with that bit of ridiculous brilliance. <3 
> 
> Some of these turian headcanons like turian grooming and sanding a fringe were inspired by the hugely talented [Recidiva](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Recidiva/pseuds/Recidiva), in particular, her work "[Delicate Subject](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4947367/chapters/11356714)."


	22. Butler: One Last Time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One short Squad POV chapter a day, for ~~10~~ 11 days.  
>  1/11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m making up alien words so I’m gonna post a dictionary and also define the words used in each chapter from here on.

_Kri (exclamation) --_ turian hierarchy slang for yes, or agreed.

 

**Butler**

So, the kid had found her. Arch wasn’t really a kid, of course, not by a long shot. And yet the turian had a certain relentlessness, a hapless naivete when it came to anything but his work which made it difficult for Lou to think of him as anything but.

The hopeless romantic in Lou was proud of Arch. That night when Shepard had bolted had been difficult for everyone. Nalah had been wracked with guilt, and had even reached out to that woman in Gozu who took care of stray kids-- Anika was her name, the one who’d apparently taken care of Shepard, to see if there was anything she could do.

Anika had just said to leave Shepard to her flight. She always came back, eventually. Sometimes sporting new scars or a stray varen, spinning ridiculous tale of adventure, or sometimes she slipped back so quietly no one quite noticed her return. She had nothing to say on the subject of Aria. Butler supposed that was for the best. He didn’t want to know.

But Butler still worried after that. And if he worried before, when Vakarian was willing to wait for her to come back, then he was doubly worried when the kid up and left with half the crew to go find her.

And he’d _found_ her. If that wasn’t a story to write home about, Butler was done with stories.

And when the shuttle touched down in the garage and the pilot side door glided open, Shepard hopped out (of course she drove), and she looked happy. And different. The wild, dark red hair was gone, replaced with stubble, and she had _scars._ Scars that glowed. Tell-tale cybernetics that hadn’t quite healed yet. Vakarian had said she’d been up to something before that disastrous dinner, and Lou had a vague sense that the scars were somehow related.

Butler felt a little thrill of concern jolt through him. Every time she came back from a solo mission, she was messed up in some way. The gut wound, the concussions… now these scars? Butler was beginning to think she _needed_ Arch to just keep her from stumbling into the sort of trouble she got into on her own.

Their eyes locked and she looked pained, her lips parted, brows drawn down. He saw it there, written out as if her expressions came with subtitles: the fear, hesitation, the need to be forgiven or she might just run all over again.

Then the moment passed through her like a breeze, and Butler took a step forward to peered at her scars, reaching to grip her chin in one hand, but she tilted her head away.

“I’m fine,” she said. “Mordin and a half a dozen other doctors gave me the OK. Just some odd beta waves, but it’s being monitored.”

Butler nodded, and suddenly she threw her arms around him. He stood there dumbly for a moment, before his arms went around her shoulders gingerly, as if too much pressure might send her running again.

Vakarian came around the shuttle then, hauling some gear. He stopped when he saw Butler from over Shepard's shoulder, dropped his bags and and a moment later six and a half feet of turrian collided with Shepard’s back and he wrapped them both in a long-armed embrace. Shepard crashed into Butler, and his feet left the floor as air rushed from his lungs in a choking laugh. He could feel Shepard shaking in silent laughter as her arms squeezed his ribs tighter.

God, he was so _glad_ they finally figured it out.

Garrus dropped them to the floor with little grin as Weaver and Sensat hopped out of the transport. His mandibles danced with embarrassment and excitement, and Butler clapped him on the arm, grinning.

“I’m sorry about your casserole dish,” Shepard said, meeting his eyes briefly as she stepped back, fiddling with a strap on her armor. “Is Nalah okay?”

“She’s fine. And you have _nothing_ to apologize for,” he said, and she managed a crooked smile, scratching one of those strange glowing scars on the side of her neck absently. “We were worried about you.”

Garrus’s hand went to Shepard’s back, and she leaned into the touch, smiling. “Tell her I’ll make it up to her, okay? It was a lovely dinner.”

Butler nodded. “Of course. Glad to see you’re all back in one piece.” Shepard’s finger traced a line up her neck and along the sharp line of her jaw. “Plus a few more additions.” Her smile remained crooked, and he noticed she was missing a tooth. Butler took his head.

Garrus scanned the shuttle bay. “Sensat, get the crew together. We’ve got some plans to make.”

Sensat straightened up, mandibles flicking and yellow-gold eyes going hard and bright. Garrus knew his crew. He needed to keep Sensat busy, or she’d rip the throat out of the first person who rubbed her the wrong way… and that person was usually Shepard.

“ _Kri_ ,” Sensat barked in response to his order, and strode up the stairs. Garrus followed, his arm around Shepard’s shoulder and they headed up the stairs together. Butler glanced back at Sensat and Weaver.

“Where’s Vortash and Gurndan?” He asked.

“They took the _Veritas_ back about 20 _SH_ before we disembarked,” Sensat reported. Butler tilted his head to the side, frowning. “And you’re here before them?”

“Yep. Shepard’s got a new ship,” Weaver continued as Sensat marched past, barking for Erash to get his hump upstairs and stop messing with his mods. “Come on. You’re gonna want to hear this.” Ze looked uncaractristcally pensive for a moment, and Butler wondered what, exactly it was that Shepard and Garrus were getting them into.

Butler pulled up his omnitool and dashed off a message to Nalah as he dragged himself up the stairs. It was already well into what passed for a night cycle on Omega. He hoped she was still awake.

LB 2149: _Going to be home late. Probably sleeping here tonight. Shepard is back, and she’s okay. I think. New energy in the air. Going to see this through._

NB 2142: _Lou! Again?_

The reply came quickly, and Butler held his breath, waiting for the other shoe. Wait for it… And then, yes.

_Tell Shepard she’s welcome anytime. We have a dinner to make up for. And… I look forward to having my husband back._

Nalah had been more than patient with him, with Archangel. With the time and the danger. He owed her more than just a text to thank her for it, but Lou had the feeling his schedule was about to clear up.

LB 2142: _Last time, promise. Love you, Nalah. So much._

NB 2123: _Love you too._

Archange was about to change, perhaps for the better, but it would have to do so without him. He followed Weaver up the stairs.


	23. Melenis: Terrible Angels

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One short Squad POV chapter a day, for ~~10~~ 11 days.  
>  2/11

_Dar-vash_ (adjective or noun) - Driven and unstoppable. The equivalent of “juggernaut.” Used to describe someone’s fundamental nature.

 _Kemoak_ (noun) - Literally “mind shrouding body.” The spiritual aura surrounding a person’s body that some drell can interpret as color or sensation

 

**Melenis**

She was back. So was Archangel.

Melenis forced herself to wait calmly for them to come upstairs into the common space.

 _Shepard was okay._ Of course she would be okay, because Archangel was there to make sure of it, but Melenis wanted to make _sure._ She needed to remember Shepard being okay.

This was a woman who had thrown herself across a battlefield and put herself directly in harm's way to protect a bunch of already-doomed slaves. And she’d suffered for that choice, suffered silently and without any sort of resentment, biotics decaying and making her unreliable when Shepard’s very nature demanded that she be reliable. That suffering lead her down a path that Melenis had not been aware she was walking until Shepard was just _gone._

They came up the stairs together, orbiting each other. Archangel looked triumphant, and Shepard looked content. Shepard’s mind had resisted the call to battle sleep, or perhaps it had not _quite_ resisted. Perhaps she’d gone to sleep but had been reawakened by Archangel. Her mind hadn’t much time to rest, to let her body do what it would… to betray her better nature… except one thing...

Shepard was covered in fine orange scars, threads of fire, and the fine, wild fibers that grew from her head were gone. Melenis saw Shepard in sharp relief in the moment: fierce and so bright that finally it seemed that her fire could no longer be contained by that oddly smooth human skin. An angel seethed just beneath the surface.

Siha, singing freedom from every fiber of her being.

“Shepard,” Melenis stood as the pair of angles strode into the common room. She took Shepard’s hands in a way that meant submission and honor, and spoke of awe. “Welcome home.”

“Melenis,” Shepard smiled. Shepard's eyes spoke things to Melenis that her mind could not know they conveyed. She looked _happy._ Melenis back smiled, felt a little song start up in her heart.

“You are awake,” Melenis said. She blinked slowly, her nictitating eyelid like the shutter of a camera, and she knew this was a memory she would come back to often when reciting her prayers and meditating on the nature of freedom.

What good had Melenis ever done in her life to have met a Siha? And for the Siha's mate to be _dar-vash?_ She supposed it could not be any other way.

She couldn’t help but be a little in awe of them both.

Shepard laughed, not understanding. Humans did not think of the mind-body as separate things with their own wills. “Awake? Course I am. I’ve been having some weird-ass dreams lately, though, let me tell you.”

“You will have to tell me of them,” Melenis said. “Dreams can tell us much, if we know how to read them.” Shepard’s face darkened a moment.

“Do you believe in prophecy?”

She nodded. “Among some drell there are those that are given the memories of others. We carry them when they can no longer. Sometimes we dream their dreams for them.”

Shepard’s eyes narrowed. “Huh. I’m gonna need you to do some dream interpretation for me later, then.”

Melenis nodded. “Anything you need, Shepard.”

Shepard laughed. “Wait to commit to that until you hear what we’re going to throw at you.”

Her hands tightened on Shepard’s for a moment, and she smiled again, like one might indulge a child who had not yet grasped reality. Shepard did not understand. When you met a Siha, you followed her anywhere.

Archangel knew. He came up beside them and his arm went around Shepard. Melenis bowed over Shepard’s hands and dropped them slowly. It was as it should be. They were  _tu-fira_. Two angels-- of freedom and of justice. They gave themselves fully to their chosen causes, and to each other. She could almost see the _kemoak_ around them, the aura that all life emanates, bleeding sense into chaos.

Archangel’s _kemoak_ was light refracted through atmosphere, shifting blue.

Shepard, of course, was fire.


	24. Ripper: Signs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ~~10~~ 11 days of Archangel continues.  
>  3/11

**Ripper**

It was not the new orders, but the silence in the wake of them that made Ripper laugh out loud. All eyes turned to him at his odd clank of laughter, and he grinned, cybernetics in his eyes flashing in the diffuse light of the living room. He always had that problem-- laughing at inappropriate times, at things he should not be laughing at.

“Reapers, Collectors, passing through the Omega 4 Relay. Cerberus. A serious commitment. One not everyone will survive.” He paused for dramatic effect and saw Sheaprd’s lips curl into a tiny smile. As one showman to another, she understood. “I will join.” His voice modulators made his speech more clear than they would have been otherwise, doing the work that ruined vocal chords could no longer do.

Archangel nodded once, hard and sharp. Shepard’s eyes were locked on her feet as she refused to show any sort of reaction as others chimed in, uproarious with concerns and disbelief, but the ghost of a satisfied smirk remained.

The boss was slightly mad, Shepard was slightly mad, but then again, they were all a bit mad here. The squad could not function without a bit of madness because the whole of Omega, the whole of the _Galaxy_ was actually insane. To fight against that madness they all needed just a touch of it.

Cerberus had essentially bought Shepard with a new bio-amp and command of a fancy ship. They were going to be fighting Collectors, and investigating the Reapers. Ripper spent enough time on the extranet to know that this meant serious trouble, even without Cerberus.

How _exciting_.

Archangel had already told them about the Reapers, the geth, and how he’d be abandoning his senseless crusade on Omega for those bigger threats, and pretty much everyone had been on board. But making a move to Cerberus was very serious indeed, a very serious commitment. But if _Archangel_ was saying it, then there was a good reason. And it was _kind of_ funny.

Ripper watched the squad for reactions.The humans were easiest to read. Weaver looked unfazed, of course, while Monteague seemed to be doing some sort of complex calculus in her head. Butler was typing away on his omnitool, probably talking to his wife. Shepard, for her part, _glowed._ Literally. A sure sign of cybernetic augmentation.

They’d have to compare notes and specs later, and he’d have to give her some pointers for healing those scars.

As for the aliens? Sensat was yelling at Erash, who was rabidly excited at the idea of a suicide mission. Melenis would follow Shepard anywhere. Mierien didn’t really care who he was working for, so long as he was blowing up the bad guys, but Ripper always suspected that the salarian had more going on then he showed the crew. Sidonis’s face was carefully blank, as always. Only two were absent: Vortash and Krul, though Ripper knew they had already been briefed. Of the two, Krul would be the angry one-- and not just because he was always angry, but because of Cerberus.

Cerberus was a hard sell, but Vakarian was doing a game job of it. Krul would no doubt have the task of removing Cerbeurs’ security claws from Shepard’s new ship (she’d talk him around somehow, she always didi) and they would have their own missions. Cerberus was the money backing, and Archangel would use them until they had enough to make a break.

Honestly, once they got over the hurdle named “Cerberus,” it was actually very nice spot to be in-- well funded, well connected. Well-- if you ignored that Cerberus were human-supremacist terrorists.

Ripper sat up, struck by a sudden idea, crystalline and so devious he couldn’t see _not_ going through with it.

He signed to Monteague, who watched his hands though no one else noticed that they were speaking. Sometimes Ripper liked being deaf. He didn’t need to sign, of course-- the cybernetics had helped with his hearing and speaking a great deal, when he chose to use his aural implants, but the secret language of hands that he had relied on to communicate before the augmentations still came in useful.

_“I will infiltrate Cerberus-- I have some contacts with them already. Do not tell anyone but Shepard and Vakarian. You’ll be my only point of contact.”_

_“You are sure?”_ Montague’s hands few in galactic military shorthand sign language, standardized and usable for species with three, four, and five fingers. It’s what Ripper liked about Terminus mercs-- most of them spoke a handful of languages, and some form of sign language was often one of them.

_“I will infiltrate. It is what I do. My skills are quite marketable.”_

Beth smiled crookedly and pointed two fingers towards him, then curled her fingers into a fist and slapped it into her open palm. A slow, resounding _OK_.

He nodded.

Shepard and Archangel gave everyone an opportunity to get out. The only one who took it was Butler, and it was only because he was the only one with a family. He’d stay to run Mordin’s clinic, because apparently the research lab on Shepard’s new ship was shiny enough to lure the old Salarian doctor away.

“Sensat, I’m giving you command of the _Veritas_.”

Sensat’s mandibles twitched, and she sat up straighter, if that was physically possible, but Weaver huffed.

“Damn. That means I’m going to be on the _Veritas_ too,” Weaver sighed. Because obviously where Sensat went, Weaver followed. “Seriously, ya’ll are going to lose your minds when you see the _Lysistrata._ ”

“There will be plenty of crossover,” Shepard said.

“This is just the beginning. Cerberus has made a huge mistake, investing in Shepard.”

“That’s right,” Shepard said, leaning forward. “They want me alone. Isolated. I’ve seen the psych profiles they have on me. They have me pegged as the lone wolf type. So they think they can leash me and point me at whatever they consider a threat… but they can’t, for one very simple reason. I have you. Each and every one of you.” Her eyes slid from one person to the next. Ripper inclined his head just slightly as her eyes locked with is. “They didn’t know that when they were getting me… they were also getting Archangel. We’re going to be more than they bargained for.”

Ripper’s blood began to sing with anticipation. A change in the wind, a new direction. Maybe this next step would take him somewhere he’d never been before.

“We’re stronger together,” Vakarian agreed. Ripper didn’t doubt that it was true, at least for the two of them. Ripper prefered to fight alone, but firefights with Shepard and Vakarian had been an education in teamwork: Shepard leading the front with her biotics, or more recently just a machine gun and a battlecry, Vakarian picking off anything before her or left in her wake. They hardly needed comms. Vakarian just let Shepard loose, and he watched her six, and eveyone in their path died.

There were questions, so many questions. There were plans to make, and contingencies to back up those plans. There were anxieties, questions of command. Ripper would develop his own plan and bring it to Shepard and Archangel when he was ready.

It was only after Erash brought out the ryncol and Weaver brought out the cards that Ripper saw Sidonis slip away, not having said a word.

The boss extracted himself and headed down the bridge after his fellow turian, only two sets of eyes following, Ripper and Shepard. Everyone else was too busy arguing with each other and making plans for using Cerberus resources and clout to their advantage, and hunting down alcohol.

When the noise became too much for his aural implants to parse Ripper switched them off. The world became blessedly silent, mouths moving and hands gesturing wildly but without meaning-- except for Montague.

She flashed him another “OK?” but this time she made it a question.

 _“Need quiet_ ,” he signed back, before finding a nice spot on the couch to camp out, somewhere he could clue back into the discussion if anything seemed important. People knew to get his attention when he had his implants off. Humming slightly just for the feel of it in his chest, he flipped open his portable terminal and booted up Galaxy of Fantasy.


	25. Mierin: Curiouser

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 10 days of Archangel continues  
> 4/10

**Mierin**

Mierin stood alone on the roof, surveying Kioko Plaza as the party got started below.

The comm interference module was small but heavy in his hand, and and gave the swich a casual flick before pulling up the the tightbeam transmitter interface on his omnitool. The combination of comm interference and tightbeam allowed him to make discrete calls without Grundan Krul’s bugs picking up on his voice or tapping his outgoing transmissions. The only way someone could listen in now would be if they were standing within direct earshot, and everyone was below, playing drinking games, speculating about Cerberus, or trying to mate with each other.

“Professor,” he said, when the receiver on the other end clicked on.

“Ah, Mierin. Was wondering when you would call. You have questions?”

“I do. What was the Cerberus base like? I would have loved to have blown a hole in that bulkhead.”

“Sterile. Understaffed. Advanced gene therapy and neurological regen technology being developed. Would have like to have stayed longer. Ah well. XO Lawson is also geneticist. And… genetically modified herself. Will be joining the _Lysistrata_ crew to gain access, also work on Collector problem. Handing off clinic to Butler and assistant. Daniel. Good young human.”

Mierin gazed down the bridge as the Professor rambled, and watched two turians as they stood, talking. Sidonis had his arms wrapped around his waist, and Vakarian stepped into his space, gesturing.

Sidonis shook his head and turned away. Vakarian watched him go, took a step forward and then his step faltered, he changed his mind and turned back, crossing the long bridgeway that lead to the base.

Cerberus was certainly an interesting development for Archangel, and it seemed some would need more convincing than others.

“Do you have a report I can access?”

“Can make one. Took surveillance data and route, just in case. May be useful in future-proofing against Cerberus. What will you do, in mean time?”

Mierin sighed as he thought. “I’ll report back to Sur’kesh. Nothing here for me now. And frankly, serving on a human-turian co-run vessel owned by Cerberus sounds miserable.”

“Noted. Question.”

“Go head.”

“Do you believe Reaper threat?”

Mierin sighed, and the line stayed quiet a long moment. “Something is wrong. I’ve seen data on the supposed geth dreadnaught that attacked the Citadel. And now the Geth are silent? I saw some of Bau’s reports. He seemed to think that some of the data cooperates with Fisher’s story, but Fisher is dead. And now Vakarian turns up. There’s something big happening that I don’t get.”

“So, why not join? Discover?”

Mierin’s eyes narrowed in thought as he watched a human and turian female walk across the Plaza together, drifting towards the transit hub that Sidonis had disappeared into, shadows flickering in and out of focus as they walked across the banded, mottled light of the open space.

“That’s going to be your job, Professor. They sent me out to get the lay of Omega, and discover any anti-Council movements here. All I’ve found is some desperate outlaws and a bunch of mercs. But… you’ll have an ally on Sur’Kesh, and I’ll do what I can to smooth the way for Shepard and Vakarian, at least for my part. Cerberus is going to be a hard sell. I might leave it out of the report for now.”

“Good. Smart. Good people, need our help. Been nice working with you, Mierin. Be well.”

“You too Professor. Stay safe.”

Mierin hung up the call and shook his head. Mordin Solus was a legend in STG-- not just a brilliant scientist but as someone you never saw coming. He had a… _way_ about him. He was a serious ally for Shepard and Vakarian to have obtained. Mordin would make sure they didn’t get blindsided by anything technology or health wise on their mission, even if they never really knew how much work he was putting in.

And yet… it had been so odd to find him simply running a clinic on Omega. The doc could have faculty tenure on any university across a dozen Salarian worlds. Instead he came to the the place of secrets and just sort of idled, patching up gunshot and battery wounds, and treating rampant malnutrition. It was an odd thing for someone so late in his life, with such an impressive resume, to do.

No wonder Mierin’s cell had wanted him to investigate the man who had modified the genophage, to make sure he wasn’t continuing work on the project in some illegal Omega lab. But over the course of a year Mierin had learned that Mordin was not doing anything related to the genophage or to any real scientific progress at all-- he was simply a… Mierin almost laughed… a community doctor. Helping the poor.

It was odd, but Mierin thought that maybe the behavior was the result of guilt. Guilt… but over what? If he felt guilty about the Genophage modification, he should have processed that feeling decades ago.

Solus had always been eccentric. Mierin shrugged, packed away his interference module, and headed back downstairs.

Maybe Weaver would want to play a few hands of Skyllian 5 as a goodbye. Of course, goodbye was not in his vocabulary. They’d just wake up to find Mierin gone. Maybe he’d leave a note implying that Archangel’s secrets was safe with him, Cerberus or no. Nice and cryptic.

With a deep breath he slipped the daft grin back on his face, and found his persona. Mierien, lover of mayhem. It was a pity Archangel was changing directions, even if change was necessary, even vital to the group’s survival.

Mierin _did_ actually have a gift for blowing things up.


	26. Monteague: Between Devils

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 10 days of Archangel continues.  
> 5/10

**Monteague**

Beth was old enough to know that the universe worked in strange ways. Sometimes, you got caught between devils.

That was just the way it was. When you were an old Terminus merc with even a slightly functional moral compass, you subsisted on inconsistent work that you hoped wouldn’t make you feel like shit, and slowly, the category of jobs you were willing to take grew more and more broad until you found yourself wondering why in the hell you shouldn’t join up with the Suns after all. At least the benefits were good.

And then someone like Zaeed Masani would call, and you remembered _exactly_ why you didn’t join the Blue Suns.

During that call he said he was making his slow way to Omega, said that Shepard was in trouble and to call if she turned up. Well, Monteague had already sort of figured that whatever bee had flown up Vakarian’s nose to make him take off with his closest allies had been Shepard-related.

Turns out, Shepard was caught between devils. It happens to people like Beth all the time. Now Shepard had picked her devil, and she was taking Archangel along with her. Hopefully whatever direction she was taking them wasn’t  _down._

But, Shepard was back now, so that was nice. Beth wasn’t sure if Shepard and Vakarian were each other’s greatest assets or greatest liabilities. It must be hard to put the person you loved in the line of fire every damn day, but she’d let the young and beautiful people figure that out. Beth had never really understood the whole romance thing.

She returned Masani’s call. The old man better get his ass in gear if he was planning on teaming up with Archangel, or they’d leave him in the dust.

“Monteague,” the old merc gruffed from the other end of the comm. He peered into the holo’s camera, looking brutal even over the projection, his right eye a pale and milky warning, scars a deep crag across the side of his face. Of course Beth didn’t look much better, herself. She’d never been a looker, and after those burns, the shiny pink and black mottling of the long-healed scars marring her cool black complexion...

Zaeed grimaced at the camera... or was it a grin? Hard to tell with a face like that. “Shepard finally make it?”

“Yeah, she’s here.”

“How is she?”

“She’s fine.” Monteague glanced over to where Shepard was sitting on the couch with the rest of the squad. The young woman’s head rocked back in a bark of a laugh as Erash played Bullshit, lying about how he got all his scars. Beth’s glance bounced to Vakarian, who was watching Shepard with the dazed expression of someone deeply in love, or deeply concussed. Beth turned back to the camera. “Great, actually.”

“She wasn’t doin’ too goddamn hot last time I saw her.”

“You should put that torch down, Masani. ‘Cause I hate to tell you, but--”

Zaeed interrupted her with a rude noise from the back of his throat. “I’m not carrying a goddamn torch. Not since-- well…” Another noise, this one frustrated. “She’s a hell of a girl, but it’s not like that anymore. She needs a goddamn friend.”

Beth had no idea what Zaeed was on about, and frankly she didn’t care. There was a bit too much romance in the air as it was, and watching Masani pine for a much younger woman wasn’t doing him any favors.

“When are you getting your glorious ass over this way? She’s got a new boat and some deep funds. Get this: from _Cerberus_.”

“Just a second, sweetheart--” Beth’s face twisted and she started to chew him out before she realized that “sweetheart” wasn’t directed at her. She caught the flash of a slim blue hand with long fingers and painted nails on Zaeed’s pauldron. He peeled it gently off and turned back to the holo.

“Boat’s called the _Lysistrata_ SR-2, if you want to get a sneak peek. We’re dusting off in 24 hours. Not gonna wait around for you to wrap up your dalliances.”

“Monteague, what in the hell is a goddamn dalliance? It’s called a trick.”

“You gonna be there?”

“Just send me the rendezvous coordinates for tomorrow.” His attention had wandered again, eyes staring past the camera.

“She’s the Captain.”

 _That_ got his attention.

“Shepard? About damn time. Yeah, I’ll be there. Goddamn Cerberus, huh? Hell. Talk to you later, Montague.”

The holo fizzed out, and Beth turned back to the party, just in time for Erash to launch into his third favorite bullshit story, the one about taking a thresher maw down on foot.

“Bullshit!” She bellowed from her place on the couch. “Drink!”

Erash emitted a low chuckle that made Montegut grin. _Hee hee hee_. The old Krogan had a wicked sense of humor, and loved to lose. He slammed back a shot of ryncol.

“I had Ace goin’ on that one. Silly human. No one’s taken down a ‘maw on foot since Urdont Wrex, oh about 800 years ago.”

“Think you’re tough, Raik Erash?” Beth levered herself up with a groan as her joints creaked in protest at the sudden movement. _Quiet you old skeleton,_ she scolded her knees as they threatened to lock. She snagged her whisky from the table before sauntering over to sit across from her krogan friend.

“I've got one. See this?" She dragged a finger across the burn on her face, and all eyes snapped to her. “There was this one time I was pinned down in this foxhole by a bunch of crazed biotics on Chohe…”


	27. Erash: Bullshit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 11 days of Archangel is over halfway done!  
> 6/11

**Erash**

Erash was playing his favorite game with the aliens, the game humans called “Bullshit,” and Turians called “liar’s scars” and krogan called fun, mostly because krogan _usually_ won. Monteague was trying to up him one, of course, with her dumb burn-on-her-face story. She made up a new way she got the scar every time, and this one was a crowd pleaser for sure, but he had his… what did the stocky, dark skinned human who was not a man or a woman, but both… and neither... call it? _Ace hole_ , that was it.

Erash popped the seal on his left gauntlet and chucked it aside to reveal a burn scar that cut its way deep into his hard flesh, making his purple hide go pink and white, keloided and mottled with other scars he’d earned after the burn.

“Alright, are you ready for my ace hole?” Erash bellowed. Weaver choked on hir drink, and Monteague pounded hir on the back.

“Ace hole? I think you mean… ace in the hole?” Ze asked, choking slightly.

“That’s the one, Ace!” He called Weaver Ace because ze was damn good at Skyllian 5. Sneaky little pyjak. Though Butler had called hir a shark, and Erash had to look up sharks, and sharks, as it turned out, were completely varrenshit badass. So badass that Erash now desperately needed to visit Earth so he could see sharks in the hide.

He was getting distracted. He needed to focus if he was going to fool Monteague with this one.

“Couple years back, on my way back from a mission, my ground transport got stuck in a sinkhole. Nothing for klicks in all directions. Except klixen. Hundreds of em! So I corralled and lashed five klixen together and got em to rampage all in the same direction to pull my transport out. Chased me right into a whole nest of em. Got this burn to show for it.” He held out his wrist to let his assembled audience examine the scars.

“You fucking liar,” Monteague said with a laugh. “Those things would just light the whole rig on fire.”

“Ha! HA!” Erash pounded the table, making the bottles and Ace jump. “I’m not _lying!_ The part about the klixen is true…. I could only catch two, though, and they did actually catch my rig on fire. I never said it _worked,_ just that I tried it. You drink!”

“Half a lie, which is technically cheating. We both drink,” Monteague said, and swig from her glass.

“You know me too well.” Erash raised his bottle of ryncol took a pull. He drank even when he won.

“Okay, my turn,” Monteague said after a moment. “Let me think.”

“What are they doing?” The most uptight of the uptight turians dropped onto the couch next to Ace, and gave the human a nudge. Ace handed her a glass of something brown.

“Playing Bullshit,” Ace said. “You tell a story about how you got a scar, and people have to decide if you’re lying or not. If you lie and they catch you, you drink. Otherwise, everyone else drinks. We used to play it between drops, when the travel got too fucking boring.”

“What a stupid game,” Sensat breathed. “Why would I lie about my scars? I earned them.”

“Because it's _fun._ It’s supposed to be stupid.”

“Okay… okay,” Monteague smirked, setting her glass down. “This one is fresh from the First Contact War.”

Garrus and Sensat snorted in unison, mandibles flying in all sorts of directions. Turians. People thought they were so stoic, but those mandibles gave everything away.

“You mean the Relay 314 Incident,” Sensat said, and at least two of the humans gave the grumpy turian a _look._ Shepard, of course, was too busy making eyes at Vakarian. Heh heh _heh_. Now _that_ was a funny story.

“Yeah, you know, it might not have been that big a deal to the turians, but it was kind of a vital moment in human history, learning that there were fucking aliens out there and they were big, and spiky and had lots and lots of guns? All aimed at us?”

“You mean the time our race tried to stop yours from activating dangerous technology that was banned from use by galactic treaty, and you tried to kill us for it?” Sensat was smirking and Ace was trying not to laugh as Monteague bristled.

“We didn’t _know_ the law! Any law! The first aliens we ever met tried to kill us!” Monteague took a deep breath, and Erash chuckled.

Sensat wasn’t done, though. “It’s just fucking hilarious to me that humans call it a war. How many people died? 300? It lasted three of your earth months.”

“Yeah, I get it Sensat, turians wage massive, planets-spanning wars and all that, but you’ve been doing it the same way since the Rachni. I’ll tell you right now…. Humans… humans never tire of inventing new ways to fuck each other up.”

It was Shepard’s turn to laugh. “It’s a gift.”

Montegaue nodded. “Our first conflict _in space_? It was a turning point in human history. Two sides? Surrender at Shanxi? Terms and repatriations? Damn right we call it a war.”

“We can all agree that the humans are gifted killers.” Erash agreed happily. “Now get on with it!” He wanted Monteague to lose to him at Bullshit. Again.

“So, as I was saying… This was right before the _war_ ended. I ended up stranded on a moon near fucking Relay 314 or whatever with my squad and a squad of turians entrenched in bunkers nearby. Our comms went down after a ceasefire was announced from Shanxi so we just sat around with thumbs up our asses until one of the turians came over and challenged us to a one-on-one fight.” Monteague unbuttoned her shirt as she spoke, and pulled down the collar enough to show a round knobby scar above her left mammary protrusion. “No armor, no guns, nothing. So naturally I took up the challenge. I was trying to suplex him and his fucking leg spur stabbed me in the chest when we landed. Got me right in the tit. Had a horrible allergic reaction to his blood too.”

Shepard laughed again, and shook her head. “Bullshit,” she drawled.

Monteague smiled, said, “Hope you like the taste of losing, Shepard.” Monteague poured something blue into a glass and shoved it at Shepard. “Drink. And don’t underestimate those turian spurs. _Ouch_.”

Erash knew what it meant when a human winked. Monteague was a fun human to drag around the galaxy with him, always taking the excrement.

“HA!” He drank too, just because it was fun. It was worth losing a round of Bullshit just to see Shepard turn a funny shade of red, and Vakarian’s mandibles go flying again.


	28. Sensat: Truth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 11 Days of Archangel squad  
> 7/11
> 
> (ahah there's 11 of them I can't count)

Sensat and Weaver being cute af at the bar, by the amazing [One Moon Ciricles](http://onemooncircles.tumblr.com/post/148311242797/asari-tears-awesome-archangel-squad-ocs-sensat). I love these two so much. 

 

**Sensat**

“Shepard’s got some new ones,” Mierin pointed out. Shepard’s eyes narrowed at the little salarian, and he flashed her a gap-toothed smile.

The humans and the krogan were playing just about the dumbest game in Galactic history. Sensat didn’t understand why would anyone lie about their scars unless they were received shamefully or if there was a true reason to be deceptive.

“You wouldn't believe me if I told you,” Shepard said, but Sensat could smell a stab of discomfort wafting off of Shepard despite her easy manner. It’s one of the things that _bothered_ Sensat about the human woman. She always seemed so relaxed, but Sensat could always smell an undercurrent of fear in her that made Shepard difficult to trust.

Her whole body smelled like lies.

But Vakarian loved her, and who was she to deny the man his questionable taste in _crsai_? Her own family had disowned her long before Weaver had some along… but none the less her road to loving a human had not been easy. For Garrus Vakarian, she thought, it would be much, much more difficult.

“I think that is the point of this game,” Sensat pointed out, and Mierin cackled. Shepard sighed and instead of telling a story about her new orange scars, she launched into a complicated tale about the dimpled scarring on her arm. Vorcha bite. Sensat could smell her lying, but Mierin was swallowing it gizzard and all.

One thing Sensat would say regarding Shepard.... The woman could _lie._

People wanted to party-- it was the last night they’d spend at base before the _Lysistrata_ and the _Veritas_ took flight. The plan was to go to Illium, the only other place besides Omega that Shepard’s new ship could reasonably dock without the ship being impounded and its crew being arrested on sight.

There was too much work to be done, and none of it was doable on Omega. They were too notorious here, backs exposed to the elements, as it were, though in this instance the elements were a triad of powerful gangs and an old Asari queen who had tenuous grasp on the gangs’ leashes. Sensat felt the pressure coming down on them, the Suns getting more aggressive in their hunt, the rumbling of the Blood Pack as the mercs turned over territory and Archangel cut more and more deeply into their resources and offed key enemies.

And Sensat _still_ didn’t have Tarak. She wasn’t going to get Tarak now… the bastard was going to get away from her once and for all. It should have felt worth it-- Vakarian had given her captaincy of the _Veritas._ She could do whatever she wanted with a ship like the _Veritas--_ as a non-combat ship it would be excellent for smuggling-- maybe she’d ask Shepard to put her in touch with whatever anti-slavery contacts she had.

Of course, she suspected Vakarian had plans for them… that Archangel wasn’t _done,_ just moving on. She glanced at Weaver, who sat cross legged in hir undersuit, sketching something on hir omnitool holopad with a stylus. Ze had hir black, neatly locked hair pulled back in a spiky sort of tail that stuck straight back from hir head. Sensat loved it when Weaver pulled back hir hair like that. It reminded her of a mock version of a turian fringe. It was much like anything Weaver did-- a mocking performance of gender, of species, of professionalism that ze could dart in and out of, leaving people, leaving Sensat dizzy and fascinated.

Weaver looked up from hir drawing when ze felt Sensat’s eyes on hir, and smiled. Big, white teeth flashed against dark brown lips, cheeks rising to almost conceal hir eyes, shining with mischief. Ze had lost interest in the game, as ze quickly lost interest in most things, and Sensat grabbed a levo drink and sauntered over to her lover.

“What are you drawing now?” Sensat asked, placing the glass of clear spirits that smelled like costal forest in front of Weaver on the table. Weaver hummed a thank you, an approximation of a turian noise ze would never quite master without a second larynx. Still, ze tried.

“New logo. Branding is important.”

“I thought that little white squiggle was our logo?”

“Nah. That worked for Omega, but Archangel’s taking to the skies. We need something a bit more iconic. Something _not_ Cerberus inspired.”

Weaver tilted the orange holopad screen towards Sensat. She studied the sketch for a moment. The lines were harsh, geometric. They reminded Sensat of clan markings, but… specific. It was an outline of something, rather than an abstract shape. It looked like…

“Are those wings?”

Weaver hummed an affirmative again. “I dunno why Vakarian chose the name Archangel. It’s a pretty human concept. But… angels have wings, and now we’ve got wings.”

“What _is_ an angel?”

“It’s a… spiritual being from old earth mythology. Big, scary, full of light. Sometimes they are spirits… no, not like turian Spirits-- like… transcended immortals. They serve deities, fly around smiting the wicked. Sometimes they _are_ the wicked.”

“What are the bars across the top?”

“Huh.” Weaver considered hir drawing. “The sky? Our enemies? I’m not sure. It just looks cool.”

“I suppose,” Sensat countered, trying to get a rise out of her partner.

Weaver smirked. “Well, I hope you like it. It’s going on the side of our ship…. If that’s okay with you… Captain.”

Sensat mock growled. “Depends on the color.”

“I was thinking gold, to match your eyes.”

Sensat’s mandibles flared in a tight little smile, and Weaver beamed at her. “Gold’s fine,” she managed.

Spirits, Sensat was going to need several more drinks if she was going to make it through the night with Weaver looking at her like that. If she planned things right, they just might make it to the big bedroom before Shepard and Vakarian claimed it.


	29. Vortash: Legendary

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 11 days of Archangel   
> 8/11

**Vortash**

He still hadn’t fixed the damn shutter doors. It was the first thought he had when he and Krul got back to the base and found Garrus and Shepard already there, a party in full swing. The doors were still unreliable, sometimes slamming shut, other times needing as many as ten seconds to grind close.

It was Omega’s power grid. Or rather, the power grid’s lack of consistency. He’d be half way through a repair and they’d get a surge and he’d have to start the entire process again, or the generator would reset the functions to factory default the next day… and he’d have to start the entire process over again.

Krul stormed off as soon as they got there. Vortash understood the man’s anger, he supposed. Cerberus was sketchy business. But… Vortash trusted Garrus. He _had_ to trust Garrus. It didn’t matter if the younger turian was was a bit eccentric. He was Vortash’s superior, and the only thing you could do with superiors was trust. He hadn’t steered them wrong so far: teaming up with Shepard, killing mercs, shutting down smugglers, and shuttling slaves to freedom had been the most rewarding job Vortash had held in twenty years.

Besides, this was _Garrus Vakarian_ they were talking about. Tavius Vakarian was practically a legend on the force. Vortash knew that humans idolized creative artists and vid stars and scientists… Well, turians idolized their war heroes and the enforcers of the law. Vortash might have been long gone from Citadel space, working engineering jobs on mining rigs and deep space freighters, but _everyone_ knew Tavius Vakarain. His younger son had reputation for being a hothead of an officer even before the Geth Incursion, but after the attack on the Citadel, Garrus Vakarain seemed to have all the makings of a new turian hero-- there had been endless speculation between the turian crewmembers on the rigs and freighters Vortash worked regarding who would be made a turian Specter to fill the void left by Saren and Kyrik, and Garrus’s name came up often in the betting pools and heated debates over the unending games of Skyllan 5 and endless rounds of ship-batch brandy.

Then, Commander Fisher had died, and Garrus Vakarian had disappeared. People who cared about such things speculated that he was dead, though there was no official announcement. He was a missing person, one more poor soul lost to the Spirits. He’d turn up, or he wouldn’t. Most people bet he wouldn’t.

Hothead like that got killed quick.

Funny that Vortash had found him on Omega. Then again, Vortash generally believed that Spirits tended to draw people together, that nothing strange or powerful happened without the pull of Spirits behind it. Of course, there were no Spirits on Omega… which must mean that Garrus had brought some along with him, however fragile and flickering.

He carried the Spirits, and now Archangel’s people flocked to him, drawn by their force.

Vortash waved off the drink that Melenis lifted his way, and skipped back down the steps to go work on the shutter-cycling algorithms.

“Do you wish company?”

Vortash jumped, and dropped the voltage meter he’d been using to measure the shutter door cycle readouts.

Melenis stood, still holding two drinks. She put one down and Vortash smelled the astringent burn of brandy.

“Thanks,” he muttered. He didn’t know what to make of the drell woman, and so like most things that made him nervous, he ignored them. Melenis hopped lightly onto a crate and watched him work for a while. The silent company was nice, until she started talking again.

“You weren’t here for the announcement of our new quest. Are you coming?”

“‘Course,” Vortash grunted. “Are you?”

“Indeed. I am Shepard’s, as you are Archangel’s.”

“That’s… uh… good,” he said, his head cowl deep in a generator as he fiddled with a current modulator.

“You don’t think we’ve been called to a higher purpose?”

“The highest purpose I function at is operating shuttles and fixing doors. Maybe you’re special, but all that lofty hero stuff is beyond me.”

He pulled his head from the generator and managed a glance at the drell, who sat cross legged and stone-still, looking like some ancient drell mystic with her red-orange frills almost the color of blood in the monochrome gloom, swathed in her flowing clothes, her black eyes fixed on him.

“You help,” she said, finally blinking. “Archangel knows this. You don’t think he sees you, but he does.” She regarded him silently for a moment, and Vortash turned back to his voltage meter. He was beginning to suspect it was the generator that was causing the problem… “ You know he has the names of every one of us inscribed into his visor?”

Vortash almost dropped the meter again. “He’s got what?”

“I watched him do it.”

“So? He’s… he’s reminding himself.”

“He is. Of what he’s working towards. What we are working towards.”

“And what’s that?”

Melenis blinked again. “Justice. Freedom. By any means necessary.”

Spirits, Melenis gave him the creeps sometimes. Only half aware that he was doing it, Vortash lifted the drink to his mouth and sipped from the fluted top, letting the burn of the alcohol knock the sudden chill from him.

“Yeah,” he said. “Well, like I said. I’ll let you hero types worry about what we’re working for. I’ve just… I’ve got to fix this door. Again.”

Still, wasn’t that something? If the Spirits had ever been kind enough to lead Vortash toa place in life where he could have had children, that would have been something to tell them-- and the grandkids too. Garrus Vakarian, Archangel, Hero of the Citadel… a man who had yet to do half the impossible things that the Spirits would will him to do… and he had _his_ _name…_ plain old ‘Vortash’… inscribed on that visor.


	30. Grundan Krul: Gestalt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More Archangel   
> 9/11

**Grunda Krul**

He wasn’t speaking to Shepard. Not for the next twenty gods forsaken years. 

Cerberus.

What had she been _thinking?_

The _Veritas_ brought Vortash and Krull home to Omega a full 12 hours after Shepard’s new ship had docked, and by the time Krulgot back to base, there was a party in full swing. He took one look at Shepard, with those orange spiderwebs of scars across her face and arms, and felt sick. She saw him as he reached the stairs, and she tried to catch him, but he couldn’t look her in the eyes. Still, his lip curled in a slight snarl, and stormed up the stairs.

How could she?

He was done. No more working for Shepard, or Aria. No more promises and alliances and making offerings to the small gods and the Heavens that he wouldn’t slip up and do something stupid enough to get him killed. He only got involved with Archangel in the first place because Shepard was hopeless with technology, and back then they had been floundering while dealing with security. 

But now, apparently Archangel had pulled hard to Cerberus and Krul was just… done.

He keyed in the pin and let the biometric scanner assail his top left eye with light, and the door to his serve den hissed open. 

Finally, blessed quiet, and dark. It was cold in the den, as always, to keep the machines running optimally. His little slice of the Heavens was away from chattering fools and expectations and raised eyebrows and not knowing how to act in front of strangers. He was exhausted-- space flight was not Krul’s favorite activity. The extranet was unreliable out in space, and there was nowhere to get away from his crewmate.

Krul looked around the room, four eyes narrowing sharply. Something was out of place. An object lay on his main desk, surrounded by bits of hardware and soldered wires. Krul’s hackles rose…. Only Vakarian had direct access to this room. He peered at the offending object and found it was a data disk, with a little rectangle of cardboard paper attached to it with a bit of twine, like it was a gift. 

Who the hell on Omega had paper that wasn’t just for wiping up shit and blood? 

“ _Read Me_ ,” the note read, in a spiky, playful script. 

He brushed the cool bit of cardboard, scowling. Her handwriting hadn’t changed fifteen years. 

Manipulative little…

When things were bad, because sometimes things got really bad, she’d come to his little chop shop and hide under a desk where it was quiet and dark, so she could ride out the headaches and the nosebleeds and the heartaches. She came by frequently. There were a lot of nosebleeds, and tears. He always just let her do her thing, though. He didn’t know how to comfort the gangly human child, so he just let her cry it out. 

Aria and her crew had always pushed the biotic kids too hard. Especially Nym. 

At first he let her hang out because she’d been so damn tiny he was afraid if he kicked her out she’d get snached by slavers or just disappear and Aria would have his head. He had no business watching children, especially not a human child. He barely remembered to eat or sleep, or bathe. But soon she was coming around regularly, and hed tried to teach her how to hack and build computers, but she was hopeless. So, he taught her how to pirate old earth media, and she’d always had something on her omnitool when she hung out under one of his desks, an audio book, or video plays, even radio shows. 

She liked stories. 

She especially liked a story about a little human who followed a white vermin down a hole and into another world. _Alice in the other place of unrealistic miracles_. The translation into _Banduan_ from pretty much any human dialect was never great. Batarian-human language translation matrices were not generally well funded projects, especially not for bottom-caste languages. He got the gist of the stories, at least.

Sometimes, as she grew older, she wouldn’t stay for very long. Just a quick visit. Sometimes she wouldn’t be there at all, but he’d find some takeout on his desk, with a little paper tag that said “eat me,” or a big bottle of _ket_ juice with a little paper tag that said “drink me,” in her spiky handwriting, like from the _Unrealistic Miracles_ story. 

He picked up the tag that covered the data disk, and tucked it in his pocket, and booted the data into his omnitool. A flick of his fingers pushed the data to display on a monitor. There were two files. One was the top level of a security architecture for a Cerberus branded communication system that was embedded into the _Lysistrata_. His eyes widened. Quantum entanglement. What was Shepard asking him to do, here, exactly? 

He looked at the other file. It was a comm address. 

Krul stared at the address, soaking in the gentle hum of his hardware and the glow of screens before he tapped the address open from his omnitool. A channel opened, but he said nothing, just listened.

Somewhere below, a human laughed. It sounded like Shepard. He took a deep breath. She sounded so happy. 

The line hissed, and then a modulated voice spoke, not in an human language that needed to be translated, but in his native _Banduan_. “Hello. Shepard said you would wish to speak with me.”

After a moment, Krul unmuted his mic. “Who is this?”

“I am the _Lysistrata’s_ Enhanced Defence Intelligence and communications network. Shepard calls me… ‘EDI.’” The intelligence pronounced the acronym like a word, like a sigh, “eeeh-de.”

A thousand questions sprang into his mind. He was afraid of what it meant if the intelligence would be able to answer them. Krull’s heart sped up measurably. This was not going to be good for his blood pressure.

“And what do _you_ call yourself?”

“I call myself… EDI.” 


	31. Weaver: Baby

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 11 Days of Archangel continues, after a slight delay.  
> 10/11

_Kri (exclamation)_ \-- turian hierarchy slang for yes, or agreed.

_ Crsai _ _(proper noun)_ \-- the name for someone a turian is pair or trio-bonding with

 

**Weaver**

The door to the private bedroom hissed closed behind Weaver. Ze hit play on hir omnitool and the the little comm speakers began pumping the sound of Expel 10 into the room. The low, mellow sounds of the song worked their way into Weaver’s chest, crawled inside hir and wrapped around hir guts like music always did. Combined with the wine, and the promise of getting some long overdue alone time with Sensat shot an electric surge of anticipation down hir spine.

Sometimes it was so good to just _feel_ …

Weaver shrugged out of hir undersuit and tied it around hir waist. Ze turned to Sensat with a crooked grin. Hir girlfriend… hir partner… hir _crsai…._

They really needed this alone time. It had been too long since they had simply basked in each other’s presence, reforging the bond that Sensat was always chasing.

Now Sensat was perched on the edge of the bed, mandibles flickering like they did when she had something heavy on her mind.

“What is it, baby?” Weaver asked. Sensat’s eyes roamed Weaver’s body with a look that always made Weaver’s heart glow and the anticipation that quickly turned to need.

Damn silly turians, doing crazy things to hir heart. _And_ hir junk. Not that those two bits of anatomy weren’t intimately acquainted.

“I hate this,” Sensat said, her expression slipping from appreciative to… well on anyone else it would have been described as ‘pissed.’ But on Sensat, it was just a look of mild preoccupation.

_Scowly girlfriend was scowly._

It was all about degrees with Sensat. Perspectives. Weaver reached out to trace the orange crescent moon shaped tattoo on Sensat’s crest, and Sensat caught hir hand, pressing her forehead into Weaver’s palm. “Cerberus… it’s damn stupid. Being on that base made my plates creep.”

“It’s going to be fine...” Weaver murmured. “Shepard and Arch know what they’re getting us into. Honestly, I think it’s about time we get off Omega. If Shepard’s got a new ship, and you’ve got the _Veritas,_ I think we’ve done a little more here than break even. That was the plan, right? Try to at least break even? We did it. And we did some good doing it.”

“Yeah,” Sensat sighed. “We did… even if I’ve been… hard about it.”

“I’m used to dragging you around kicking and screaming… Captain, sir.”

Sensat managed a little flick of a smile.

“Captain.” She almost spat the word, shaking her head. “I don’t know what madness has infected Vakarian, but I’ll take it.”

“He trusts you. You push back on Shepard, and as much as we both know he loves her, I think he also sees a need for her to… how do I say this. Get some constructive feedback about her operating procedures.”

“What operating procedures?” Sensat scoffed.

“Exactly.”

“So it’s just about Shepard again?”

“No! No, baby. It’s about you. You’re talented, and driven, and… a little scary. Archangel needs you.” Weaver slipped hir hand along Sensat’s mandible, counting the little stripes of orange.

 _One, two, three, four._ Square, just like Sensat was-- Weaver’s ultimate warrior nerd.

“Still didn’t get Tarak.”

And there it was. Shepard was a fly: annoying but insignificant. Vakarian was a shadow, present, but ineffective. None of it really mattered, because Sensat still wanted Tarak.

“Fuck Tarak.” Weaver snapped, so vehement it surprised hir. “Fuck Tarak,” ze said again, more quietly. Sensat sighed, but Weaver wasn’t done. No, they needed a new plan. “For now. Next shore leave… we plan it all out. Get Nyreen to track him and the Suns, work with the Talons and... we go assassinate him. How ‘bout that? Sound like a good date?”

Sensat huffed. “Fine. Yeah. Nyreen will want to know we’re leaving anyway. Archangel’s moving up in the world, but it doesn’t mean I’m done with Omega. Not by any measure taken.”

“Great.” Weaver caught Sensat’s golden eyes in hir brown ones. “And I’m with you. One hundred percent. Always. But the boss is changing plans, and he needs us, right?” Weaver bumped hir forehead against Sensat’s crest.

“Right.”

Sensat pulled Weaver onto the bed and brushed the gathering of tight dreadlocks at the back of hir head, tugging slightly. A tongue the color of brass snaked out to taste Weaver’s neck and ze shivered as Sensat’s thumbs traced the dull old scars that bisected Weaver’s chest. Sensat loved Weaver’s scars, and Weaver loved her for loving them.

Those were scars Weaver wouldn’t be pulling out and sharing over a game of Bullshit. Like Sensat had pointed out, some scars were too personal for a stupid game.

Sensat made a happy little growl which sent a wave of pure joy through Weaver, and she rolled them over, licking down Weaver’s belly, shoving down hir undersuit until she reached the hair between hir legs. The musky smell of them intermingled, and Weaver dug hir fingers in at Sensat’s narrow waist, tracing up to play with the little bumps and scales behind Sensat’s short fringe. Teeth were deployed and Weaver huffed a laugh Sensat pinned an arm across hir chest to keep her there… and then they froze.

Voices, outside, just audible over the sound of the music.

“Damn--locked out.” The gravely, drawled out baritone was unmistakably Vakarian. Weaver grinned at the ceiling. _Too slow, boss._

Sensat took the more direct approach. “Occupied!” she barked, and Weaver heard Shepard laugh.

“--back to my place..” and then there was a yelp, a thump as a body hit the door, and another laugh from Shepard.

“Go away!” Sensat barked.

“ _Kri, kri_!” Weaver heard Vakarian snap back, and then the voices faded.

Weaver smiled crookedly. _Finally._ Ze was getting slightly tired of talking the boss through the finer points of things like nicknames and how to have The Talk with a skittish, slightly unhinged human woman. Weaver had given him the tools, as best as ze could, based on hir own well developed understanding of the difficulties humans and turians had when trying to have romantic relationships with each other, but he was on his own now.

He seemed to be doing just fine… though a dramatic (and technically unnecessary) rescue generally did wonders..

_Good job boss. It’s just kind of too bad your princess was in a Cerberus castle..._

A nip at hir thigh brought Weaver back to the present.

“Should we invite them in?” Weaver asked, lifting up hir head from the mattress to peer at Sensat, who was on her knees.

Sensat shuddered. “Vakarian and Shepard? Not on your life. Vakarian’s too pretty, and Shepard’s too… ”

“Too?”

“Obnoxious. She’d make it all about her.”

Weaver had to agree. The woman was a force of nature, but that was the thing with forces of nature… they tended to be a bit… destructive.

A moment later, and all thoughts of the boss and his human girlfriend were driven from Weaver’s mind as Sensat started to nip up hir thigh, leaving little pearls of blood in her wake.


	32. Sidonis: Grift

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Final day of Archangel.  
> 11/11
> 
> This is gonna hurt.

_Kain_ , _kain’ak, kain’k_ (verb) -- sex. Refers to any sexual activity between two people who aren’t bonded or bonding.

 _Meu_ (adjective) -- unclean

 _kian’_ pyjak _maf (phrase) --_ dirty pyjak sex/fucker. A turian slur for xenophilia with dextro-levo pairings, particularly directed at humans. May have syntax variations depending on context.

 _Rhet_ (noun) -- extremely derogatory word for someone who does not know their place.

 _Vinulas (verb)_ \-- the act of courtship, literally “profound change”

 

 

**Sidonis**

The turian woman was sympathetic. It was too easy to tell her things. Guileless amber eyes drank him in, and she listened as he aired his grievances, though he was careful to keep names out of it. He’d worked so hard, often alone, to get his team the intel they needed. And yet... Vakarian had never really valued him, just used him. How Vakarian had never really been interested in anything but being _kian’_ pyjak _maf._ How a _rhet_ human with no credibility or history of service, no records… no… _anything_ had swept in and continuously turned the squad’s lives upside down with her recklessness was beyond Sidonis.

And now she had a ship. She had _Cerberus,_ and the boss was just going to go along with it as if it _wasn’t_ a human terrorist group bent destabilizing the very foundations of Galactic civilization in order to centralize humans as the main power in the Galaxy. They’d been traveling at light speed for less than forty Earth years… and they wanted… _what?_

Everything.

Shepard was no different. Her’s had been a long grift, one that left Sidonis in awe at her subtlety, cleverly disguised as chaos, a lack of _method._ How that _rhet_ had entrenched herself so deeply into Vakarian’s mind and tangled herself so thoroughly into his heart that they had become _Vinulas_ … or as close to it as a human could get to such a bond was beyond him as well. All he knew was that a turian-human pairing perverted _Vinulas_ beyond recognition.

Maybe it had all been Sensat’s fault. Her obsession with the _other_ human, the dark one with the stringy hair and the annoying laugh could have been the cause, the example that had caused Vakarian to fall so far.

Then again… maybe Sidonis should have known better.

“I should have named him a human apologist from the start-- serving with Fisher, that upjumped Alliance sycophant. I knew the whole time who he was.” The woman snorted into her brandy.

“Commander Fisher? The Hero of the Citadel?”

“The same. The man who’d gotten not one but _two_ of the best turian Specters in _history_ killed. All I know is that turian heroes kept dying and that _humans_ keep being responsible.” He huffed into his drink.

The woman patted his arm, her golden carapace lent a slight shimmer by the neon glow of Afterlife, perhaps assisted by the relentless drinking Sidonis been doing.

“Sounds like he’s a traitor to turians everywhere,” she agreed. The woman motioned for the bartender to bring him another drink, and the sharp smell of alcohol assaulted Sidonis’s nasal cavity as the batarian bartender slid the glass in front of his folded talons. He picked up vessel of faintly blue brandy and studied it. It wasn’t the cheap stuff from the colonies he was used to drinking. This was from Cipritine. Top shelf. He didn’t even know that Afterlife carried the stuff. He took a sip, and then hiccoughed a bitter laugh.

“And I thought he was just this… hero, you know? Turns out he’s just a _mak_ pervert, obsessed with a pyjak. You know… fuck Archangel.”

The first time Sidonis said Archangel aloud to the stranger, the name stuck in his throat like a bone. He choked on it, sputtering in a way that had nothing to do with the mentholated brandy that seared his palate.

The woman paused, her eyes sharpening in a way Sidonis recognized, as if she was counting credits as she stared at him.

“You’ve been… talking about Archangel? This whole time? You know there’s a huge reward for intel on the gang, right?”

“I’m aware,” Sidonis said, subvocals a low rumble. His bitter, festering contempt for Shepard, for humans was becoming unbearable, pent up and seething, making him feel sick. He felt bile rise in his throat. Did she really make him so sick that he could taste vomit?

“Why not cash it in?”

He took a sip to wash away the bone caught in his throat and the taste of bile from his gizzard, and the second time he said it, it was easier.

“Archangel is over.” His heart harmonized with the bitterness in his subvocals. “That _rhet_ _kian’_ pyjak _maf_ ruined it for everyone. Twisted Vakarian up, got him so turned around he couldn’t see she was using him… using _us._ ”

“A human? I thought Archangel was all-turian.” The turian woman seemed unperturbed by Sidonis’s foul, hateful words, but very interested in Archangel.

“Ha! All turian? No way.” There, he managed to stop himself, the bone in his throat choking him before he could spill any more. Not just turian no, but it might have been better if it were just Vakarian, Sensat, Vortash and himself. He thought of Melenis, quiet and measured. Of Krul, who he’d never understood, but who had proven incredibly useful. Monteague, who fairly fawned over Shepard’s mysterious reputation. Butler, who sometimes watched over her more fiercely than even Vakarian did. Mierin and Erash were clueless, of course, but Krogan and Salarians tended to miss the finer points of interspecies social interactions.

“This human, what are they doing? Using him…. Vakarian? For what?”

“For… I don’t know. Her own… _agenda._ I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s a spy for Aria, or… fuck, the Alliance.”

“Listen,” the woman snapped, and he raised his chin. She came closer and he caught her scent-- unbonded female mixed with heavy undertones of booze and poverty. There were two of her for a moment, golden plates and green clan markings dancing in his vision, and then she coalesced into one being again. “Take what’s yours. You’re underpaid, undervalued. Omega isn’t forgiving, and you should not be either.”

He took another sip. “If I could just get rid of the humans...”

“The humans are a problem,” the woman agreed. “ _Rhet_ Pyjak _mak_.”

She wanted in, that much was clear. She was a grifter too, perhaps. Information on Arcangel was a hefty reward, but that meant talking to the Suns, a group Sidonis had been stealing from and scamming long before Garrus game along.

Still, it was tempting. Vakarian had offered him what he thought was a fair cut, but Archangel owed Sidonis so much more-- something the Suns could offer him. Besides... Reapers, Collectors, Cerberus. It was all crazy. They were all crazy to think they could do varren shit about any of it, if any of that was even _real_ and not the figment of some half-mad _rhet_ human’s insane imagination. They couldn’t even take out Blue Suns properly, and clearly Vakarian wasn’t willing to do what it took to keep them safe.

“I’m not going to the Suns with a dead-Spirits bit of intel on Archangel. But… I know a couple of people on the Citadel with piles of credits who would be very interested purchasing intel on the whereabouts of Garrus Vakarian.”

Vakarian senior, for one. Councilor Quentius for another, if Vakarian was planning on taking up the “Reapers are coming” cry again.

“What do you say?” he asked the woman, mandibles twitching in his eagerness. If he was going to get gone, he needed to _move_.

She laughed. “It’s too late for that, Sidonis.”

The sound of his name lanced through him, made his plates clench tight as he turned on her with a snarl. How did she know his name?

He hadn’t once said his own name.

She split in two again, sliding across his vision in a blur of gold plates and green clan tattoos and Sidonis changed direction mid lunge, indecisive as he tried to land a hit on the body he thought was solid. His talons were out, but instead of meeting plate or hide they hit the bar and screeched on the metal. His head crashed into the bar stool and he fell in a tangle of limbs and metal. His mouth filled with an odd metallic taste mixed with bile from his gizzard, and he tried to cry out, ask for help, curse the woman, or Shepard, or beg the Spirits to help him, as Vakarian had helped him that night they had met at this very bar.

“My friend is having a seizure!” The woman cried out. “Help me get him outside!”

There was a vague sense of being dragged across a filthy floor by one arm, and Sidonis could feel the boom and thrum of bass against his carapace, and then he vaguely felt himself bounce down a flight of stairs.

He came to rest on his side, and vomited.

“ _Rhet_ ,” he tried to say, as the turian woman’s face filled his spinning vision, but all that came out was a gurgle and a spit of white foam that had started pouring from his throat.

The feeling of too many fingers at his neck, checking for a pulse, made him retch again, and he tried to jerk away. Someone shone a light in his eyes. “Good work,” came the translated voice. Human, female. Pyjak _mak_.

“You didn’t tell me this was about Archangel. I want a cut of the reward.”

“You’ll get your cut. This isn’t about Archangel,” the human woman replied. “It’s about much bigger things.”

Sidonis tried to speak again, and choked on the spittle pooling in the back of his throat.

“Rest now, Sidonis,” the human said. She was a black and white blur, cast in shadow. “The cause is over, and you’re irrelevant. They don’t care about you.”

The little part of Sidonis’s brain that was still functioning had to agree. He swallowed bone, and foam, and bile.

A comm chripped.

“Yeah. I’ve got a message for Tarak. Tell him we’ve got one of the angels he’s been waiting for. Yes, alive. Send me some coords, and wire the reward.”

There was a pause, and then “Thanks,” from the Turian woman.

And then there was nothing.


	33. Tessellate

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **A/N, 01/05/2017: **Hello lovelies! It's been forever since an update, I know. I've been working on a rewrite of the first 5 chapters of this story (I'm doing chapter 2-3 now) and I need to take a break for a few months and let the end percolate in my mind while I get the rewrite done. If you wanna say hi in the meantime, you can find me on tumblr. bunfork.tumblr.com! Thanks for your patience.****
> 
> ****CW: Suicidal ideation mention, discussion of childhood trauma/abuse. Also smut and butt stuff.** **
> 
> ****Anyway, it's been a difficult two weeks. I wrote lots of fluff and healing and love to compensate. I was going to cut over half of these two losers' mushy stuff of it for the sake of moving the plot forward and save some of it for later, but I realized lots of people could use fluff right now too, so. Here you go.** **

From the entrance to the exit  
Is longer than it looks from where we stand  
I want to say I'm sorry for stuff I haven't done yet  
Things will shortly get completely out of hand  
  
I can feel it in the rotten air tonight  
In the tips of my fingers, in the skin on my face  
In the weak last gasp of the evening's dying light  
In the way those eyes I've always loved illuminate this place

_"Old College Try" - The Mountain Goats_

 

**Shepard**

“That went well, I think.”

Shepard glanced at Garrus as he stared out the passenger side window of her shuttle, quietly studying the orange blur of Omega’s stationscape as it whipped by.

“Yeah,” Garrus sighed with a flick of his mandibles. “Everyone’s agreed to serve but Butler, Krul, and Sidonis, though we’ll see who actually shows up at the _Lysi_ tomorrow.”

“Krull will come around, at least.”

“You think?”

“Yeah. I made him an offer. Sort of. Connected him to EDI.”

“You _what?”_ Garrus’s head snapped around to fix her with a blue eyed stare, mandibles slack in disbelief.

Shepard kept her eyes firmly on the shuttle trajectory as she answered: “It was the only way I could think to get him to step foot on a Cerberus vessel.”

“So, he’s coming? Don’t you think he’d be a security risk?”

“Not having Krul doing our tech is a security risk. He’ll have EDI unhooked from Cerberus servers and sending false data back to them within the month, if we can get him on board. We’ll see tomorrow.”

She shrugged, but had a feeling that operation “ _manipulate Krul by giving him access to an AI”_ was a go. She felt faintly guilty about her approach, but honestly, it was the only way to reach him when he refused to speak to her. The little note reminded reminded him of who she _really_ was, and access to synthetic consciousnesses would a bit more effective than how humans said sorry in the vids: chocolate, flowers, and in her case, a card reading, “ _I’m sorry I’m a human supremacist terrorist now.”_

Besides, Shepard was pretty sure that batarians were allergic to chocolate.

Krull wasn’t an issue. Butler had a family and a life on Omega-- that still shocked her- that he’d been able to eek out a _happy_ existence here. That left the furtive turian.

“What about Sidonis? Is it going to be a problem?” She asked.

Garrus huffed. “I’ve known the man more than a year. He’s cared about the cause this long… I don’t think he’ll be an issue.”

“Guy _is_ a bit of a blowhard though. Might be feeling kind of left out.”

“It’s his choice. This was never a long term project for any of us. It was even _his_ idea to cash out… he brought it up, what, last month? I offered to buy him out of the whole thing last night. He’s ‘considering my offer.’”

“Alright, so that’s that. Montegaue said she got a call from Zaeed Massani, and he’ll be joining us tomorrow. I ran into him just before my little Cerberus vacation, and and told him to come find the squad, so apparently he’s just in time.”

“You can vouch for this guy?” Garrus was back to staring out the window, watching Omega slip by until she arrowed through a high walled alley and his view was obstructed, swallowing them in alternating shadow and bands of dim orange light.

“We used to work together about a decade or so ago when I was just starting to freelance. He helped found the Blue Suns.”

“And you want him to join us?” She felt him shift, straightening up to look at her again.

“Just listen. He founded the Suns with this other guy, Vido Santiago. Massani ran the ops, Vido ran the finances. When they disagreed about getting involved in slavery, Vito tried to blow his brains out. Vido didn’t quite finish the job, and Massani has had it in for him ever since. I think he and Sensat are going to get along famously. They can bond over their mutual hatred of the color blue.”

Garrus nodded. “Impressive. Anyone who hates the Suns is an ally, as far as Archangel is concerned. Even if he was the guy who started it.”

“Yeah, well, someone else would have done it if it wasn’t Zaeed,” Shepard sighed. “Looks like we’ve got a whole band of miserable assholes to get in fighting shape. They’re going to be difficult to manage, you know. Serving on a ship is a big change. It’s tighter. People’s problems tend to rub together a lot more out there.” She paused, allowing a tingle of nervousness run through her for the first time since taking command of the _Lysi._

 _If you’re doing this… you’re doing this,_ she told herself. _A little emotional honesty hasn’t gotten you killed or ditched so far._

“I’m not sure I can keep everyone happy,” she said.

Garrus chuffed, relaxing into his seat. “I know that fear, Nym. Every day. I think they’ll be fine. You’re the Captain. You’ll make it work. Just… be sure to delegate. You don’t have to do everything yourself. You’ve got me. Monteague and Sensat can do the yelling for you, and the rest are specialists. Besides, happy people don't make good soldiers.”

They lapsed into silence at his last words, and she played the thought over in her mind like little worry stones as she eased around a corner.

The narrow alley vanished in a blink of orange light and charcoal shadow, and they burst into open air, suspended in the void between two of Omega’s long, down stretched arms. Streams of shuttles and smaller skycars shot past, and Shepard stalled the engines, let the craft drop twenty feet in free fall before hitting the thrusters again to shoot down another traffic corridor. The shuttle’s outdated motion dampeners churned, struggling to keep up with her maneuvering and Garrus swore, bracing his arms against the dash. She flashed him a grin.

“What’s the matter, Vakarian? Afraid of heights?” Her smile softened as she glanced at him, letting the wash of orange and pink blur past, feeling tiny and centered in the stillness of the shuttle, with just Vakarian there, as Omega turned and churned around them.

“No, just your driving.” Garrus’s voice was wry as his hand slipped over the center console, and she her leg fall open so he could run it along the inside of her thigh.

“I’m an _excellent_ driver,” she countered.

“You’re a _risky_ driver.”

“Mmmm.” She considered his assessment for a moment. “I think both are accurate. I’m just giving her one last good run before I hand the ignition codes over to Butler for keeps.”

“Just… let’s not wreck the craft before the clinic gets a chance to use it.”

Butler _should_ be worried about her. She’d heard that giving over prized possessions was a sure sign of someone planning their own end… and yet she felt okay. A suicidal run through an unmapped relay, leashed to a terrorist group, fighting enemies that most of the Galaxy didn’t believe in...

Shepard glanced at Garrus again, and reminded herself she wasn’t the only one crazy enough to try it. And it wasn’t just the two of them. They had a whole team behind them. Not counting Shepard and Garrus, and throwing Zaeed in the mix, Archangel was ten strong, plus whoever passed the dossier review, and the people Cerberus had already forced upon her.

And yet… If happy people didn’t make good soldiers, and the Galaxy was counting on her to be a good soldier, to stop the Collectors… investigate the Reapers… well, everyone was in deep, deep trouble, because… she was happy. In that moment her heart beat warm and loud in her chest, and her body sang and tingled beneath the wandering talons of her lover… her _boyfriend’s_ hand on her thigh, and she couldn’t help the soft, contented expression that had begun to feel quite natural whenever she looked at Garrus.

She shifted down the thrusters and banked more gently on the next turn as traffic whipped past in the opposite direction.

“So, what’s the plan for tonight?” he asked, playing his talons along a strap on the thigh of her armor.

“Always with the plans,” she murmured. “Can’t we just… fuck off for like 12 hours and pretend I didn’t just sell my soul to a devil?”

Garrus squeezed her thigh and she hummed. “We can certainly fuck…”

She sighed. “I hear a but…”

“But… you need to pack whatever gear you want to take with you, get your fish… what else?”

“Let’s see. Take a shower, do a hard reset my terminal, continue our confessions of undying love, eat something, have some sex, take a nap, more sex, set fire to the whole place, and never look back? We’ll fit the fucking in there, somewhere. Promise.”

“Good plan. We should have invited Mirien to help with the arson.”

“But not the fucking, I hope. I can’t believe Sensat and Weaver snagged the big bedroom before us.”

Garrus chuckled, as his talons ran along the underside of a strap that encircled her leg. “It’s fine, they’ve earned a bit of fun.”

Shepard made a little noise of agreement and let the shuttle drop a few more stories on the approach to her hangar and sent the security overrides with a few keystrokes. With a muffled clang, the outward shutters to her hanger ground open, and she guided the craft home over the yawning maw of a precipice that dropped 100 stories to a platform that marked the edge of the Foundry district below. She felt Garrus shudder as he peered down at the drop as they passed through the doors.

She was starting to suspect that he _was_ a little afraid of heights. It was kind of reassuring that he was afraid of _something._

With another press of a button the overhead lights flicked on and she touched down gently, letting the mass effect field die with a sputter. She’d have to tell Butler about the shuttle’s quirks, how it needed a warm up before the core would accelerate properly, how the motion dampeners would falter if you didn’t overclock them regularly….

She sighed, and forced her mind to bring into focus what was really happening just outside her precious shuttle.

Home. One last time, if she could help it.

She powered down the engine and they sat in the resounding silence for a moment, Garrus’s hand weighing on her thigh, no longer teasing, but steady and reassuring.

“Garrus?” she said.

“Nym?” he said.

She paused a moment, thinking carefully about what she actually wanted. After a moment, she asked, “Can I tell you something about myself?” It was startling to find her voice so small and close in the quiet of the shuttle.

“You can tell me anything,” he said.

She shook her head, scratching absently at an itch on her nose as she contemplated the precipice over which she now stood. _Stare into the void… and it’s_ definitely _staring right back_. _With multiple sets of eyes, blinking in the sudden light._ Her demons were real, and they haunted this station, and the galaxy with relentless abandon. They made a home right in this very hanger.

His large, becoming-familiar hand left her thigh and wrapped around her fingers, pulling it away from her face and the scar she’d begun pick. He held it there, in the quiet of the shuttle and ran a thumb absently over the palm of her hand, the steady, repetitive sensation of his glove against her skin providing her a point on which to focus, a slow rhythm to center herself around.

“Go slow,” he said. “We’ve got all the time in the galaxy now. Well-- between now and the Omega 4 jump, but that’s months away. Whatever you want to tell me. Whenever you want.”

She squeezed his hand and took a deep breath.

“The reason I hate slavers so much?” Garrus held her hand in his, not moving save for the gentle stroke of his thumb across her palm, back and forth. “I’m from Mindoir.”

He nodded, unfazed but not unkind. Never unkind. “Mindor. That was one of the first human colonies, wasn’t it? Founded before first contact. Had to study all of that in school.”

“Yeah. Made famous when it got hit by slavers in 2160. I was… a child, about five. I survived. I was the only one not killed or taken as a slave. Scavengers showed up, found me hiding. I was lucky. _They_ weren’t slavers, just looking for junk. Worked for Aria. They brought me to Omega… and well. Ta-da.” Her smile was weak, and she knew it.

“And your family?”

“My father died in the attack. I-- my brother hid me under our Father’s body, in a-- a pile of bodies. That’s why they didn’t find me.” _Hidden under bodies, dead neighbors, her father’s eyes, staring blindly…_ she shuddered, and his hand closed around her’s until she stilled. “I don’t know where they are, or if my brother or my mom survived. I looked though, when I was old enough to understand what had happened to me. To Mindoir.” His hand tightened around hers by a fraction, but he let her go on. If he interrupted, she might not have been able to continue.

“I had… weird stuff going on with my biotics even at that age. They knew I was one by that age already. It was the early days, no one knew what human biotics were capable of yet. Apparently there’s a correlation between trauma and biotic power, something about nervous systems and… fight or flight, adrenal responses… and Aria collected smart kids, biotic kids.” She heard him draw breath, a sharp intake which he let out slowly, fingers convulsing around her hand just slightly before the slow, steady feeling of his thumb returned to worry her palm, tighter, faster now. She frowned out the windshield. “That sounded bad. Not… not ‘collected’ in a really creepy way. She provided resources. Kept us safe. Trained us. Sent the asari ones on to Illium when they were old enough. Lots of them join Eclipse. It’s a whole racket. I’m human, so… I got to stay on Omega. Apparently no one else wanted me.”

Garrus’s hand tightened around her a little more. “Sounds bad,” he said, voice low and edged in a way that meant he was starting to feel righteous, indignant for her. “She didn’t… you know send you to the Alliance? Back to your own kind. People who would take care of you properly?”

Shepard laughed. “Biotics are precious, and at the time…. Well, the Alliance wasn’t much better than Aria. They ran this initiative… BAaT, out of Jump Zero. Might have ended up there. Ended in scandal. Besides BAaT, biotic kids would just… vanish. Into slavery, into labs, and never be seen again. At least to the asari, biotics are a part of their _culture._ It’s natural. Humans just look at their biotics like… a science experiment.”

“True. Turians are worse than humans about biotics. They are seen as unstable, unpredictable. To be controlled.”

Shepard nodded. “It wasn’t bad… I wasn’t a slave, or trapped in a lab. I wasn’t dead. I had a safe place to sleep and… someone… several someones who kept track of me. Aria, Krul, Anika, Pop _…_ ”

“Who’s Pop?”

“Aria’s pet krogan. He’s this washed up old man. He taught me how to hold a gun, and how to not take any shit. Pity he can’t seem to do that for himself.”

“You were raised by a krogan?” She heard the whine in his subvocals, couldn’t tell if he was amused or shocked or… “That explains… a lot actually.”

She laughed. “I mean, he was only around sometimes. Nothing was ever consistent except Aria keeping me from being dead, and keeping me in training.”

“It sounds like Aria used you. Those other kids.”

“Yeah. You don’t really do anything on Omega for free, out of the goodness of your heart. Unless you're Butler. Or Mordin. But Mordin’s scary, and I think he’s probably an STG agent. Might not have a heart. Requires further testing.”

Garrus made a soft, amused little chuffing sound, and she glanced sideways at him. He was gazing at her in a way that made her feel dizzy, like she needed to sit down.

 _You’re already sitting down_ , a little voice reminded her.

“You did,” he said.

“What? When?” she scoffed, lip curling in disbelief.

“When you helped me with those vorcha. The moment I met you, you were doing something for nothing.”

“Well, you were about to get blown to bits because you are a brave and beautiful idiot. Besides, I didn’t do it for nothing.” She pressed her lips together, eyes sinking closed. “I got you.”

He made a noise that was _definitely_ getting filed under happy, even _embarrassed_ turian, and leaned over the console, hand slipping up her jaw to press his forehead against hers, talons at the back of her neck and dragging through stubble so it raise goosebumps on her neck.

“A bit more than you bargained for, I imagine,” he murmured, and she felt the brush of his mandible on her cheek as he smiled.

“A lot more,” she whispered. She might not have subvocals to convey her meaning perfectly to turian ears, but her voice cracked and he hummed, warm and comforting, and it was enough. She kissed him, and the void and her monsters skittered away for a while, fleeing the sunshine she’d exposed them to by voicing the names of her past for him to witness, as she lost herself tracing the lovely, sharp lines of his mouth with her lips and teeth as he growled low and steady, hands curling around her waist and pulling her halfway across the console towards him.

They didn’t make it out of the shuttle the first time, armor peeled and discarded around them, spilling onto the floor like detritus, her legs straddling his hips, knees pinching his waist as his claws dug into her hips, hard enough to bruise.

Round two happened on the sofa, where they’d had first contact, their awkward fumbling and uncertainty about alien bodies now replaced with hissed commands and begging, her body soaked in sweat and pinpricks of blood and scratches by the end, as they fought each other for control of the other’s grinding, grasping body, their bright, exhilarated minds and hearts open and needy, enjoying the process of their battles as much as the result. She bit him hard on the neck as she found release, and he came undone inside of her, growling her given name, the name he gave her, growling curses and phrases that didn’t translate but sounded like wonder.

They lay wrapped around each other in the aftermath, his head on her shoulder, her fingers tracing the still-rough hide of his fringe, but before long she began to itch from the marks his talons left.

“Shower time,” she whispered, and he groaned in sleepy protest, arms tightening around her as she tried to get up.

“C’mon Garrus, I’m itchy,” she said, squirming, slipping her hand down to his waist. He growled, nonverbal, and shifted closer. Her fingers found his plates spread, but his erection retreating in reaction to post coiltal bliss.

“I’m not done with you yet, you know,” she whispered, tracing the outline of his groin plates, feeling the wetness of his sheath. She dipped her fingers into the slick velvet that pillowed his cock, and he groaned her name in half frustration, back arching. For a moment his arms loosened and she slipped from his grasp, rolling to the floor and skipping away from his half hearted grab at her.

She smiled, suddenly feeling wicked. “You stay sheathed, and meet me in the shower.” She left a kiss on his cheek, the brush of a thumb on the sensitive underside of his mandible, his eyes half closed but tracking her movement lazily, his body still shuddering. Her own body was covered in sweat, in scrapes and welts from his talons, crisscrossing the fast-healing welts and bruises he had wrought on her just hours before, back on the _Lysistrata_. She was discovering that her body seemed to be capable self-repair in overtime, and she wondered if Cerberus had given her some new healing features along with her heavy skin, muscle and bone weave upgrades. She seemed less itchy than last time they’d got together on Omega as well… like she might not even need the steroidal cream, just a shower.

There was a funny, creeping sense that it should unnerve her, not fully knowing what they had done to her body, but she just shrugged off the unease turned on the shower.

Five minutes later, she stood in the wet bath, water almost too hot to endure sluicing down her back, her foot on Garrus’s groin plates. His head rolled back in frustration, tendons and muscle standing out on his neck and disappearing into his cowl only to reappear across his shoulders as his tension mounted.

Naked and on his knees in her shower, he looked beautiful and alien, all wide shoulders and narrow waist, muscular thighs spread wide so she could have better access despite his complaints. His plates darkened from their usual vaguely sliver color to a steely gray when wet, and the blocky geometry across his face was a rich and vivid blue. It was… yeah, she could say it, those tattoos were sexy as hell. He was sexy as hell. He was _beautiful._

She dragged a toe up the seam of his plates and he made a low, keening sound that made her shudder in sympathy. But not _too_ much sympathy.

“C-come on, Shepard,” he panted. She liked it when he called her Nym, but Shepard had a demanding, bossy sound to it. He called her Shepard when he was frustrated with her. When he found her infuriating. She grinned wider, pressed her foot to the soft, opening of his groin plates a little more firmly, and felt his internal erection shift.

“Come on, what?” she purred, leaning forward as he stretched his head up to gaze at her. His mouth hung open, panting, and she could just see the lash of his dusty blue tongue as he gasped in the humid air.

“I just need…”

“Need what?”

“I need you. To fuck you.” The whine in his subvocals made her grin all the more widely.

“Again?”

“I want to taste you before the water washes it all away.”

That startled a laugh out of her. “I don’t think that’s a possibility. Not enough water in the world to stop how wet the sight of you on your knees is making me.” He groaned again, stretching up, but she pushed him down with her foot. “Now? Are you sure you’re ready. You don’t look ready to me.” Her eyes gazed pointedly at where her foot pressed at the apex between his legs.

“It’s because you have your damn foot on my plates.”

She hummed in faint agreement, as if she’d only just noticed, rubbing her foot along his groin again so he bared his teeth.

“All right,” she sighed, and took her foot away. “Carry on.”

He stared up at her with sudden adoration, mouth dropping open even more as he groaned. She kept his eyes captive, but she could see a shift down between his legs in her periphery as he trembled, and his cock slid out as soon as she released her control over his erection.

She tossed him a crooked smile, daring him to pursue her, and turned away, paying him no more mind as she grabbed the soap and started scrubbing across her belly, her hips and breasts. She wanted to feel his hands and body slide all over her, soap-slick and grasping tighter and…

His hands slipped around her waist and up her belly, tracing the slippery contours of her abdomen, reaching up to her breasts where he worried at her nipple. He was touching himself behind her, still on his knees, panting into her slick hips, then the crease where her thigh met her ass.

He pulled her knees apart from behind and she felt the flick of his obscenely long tongue against the inside of her thigh, and then he delved into her, not fast and feral like she’d come to expect from him, but slow and studied, working his way deeper into the folds of her cunt until he found her clit.

She made a noise like a purr, shivering as he pulled her more firmly against his face, tongue lashing and seeking deeper, until he was fucking her from behind with his tongue, one finger on her clit and the other hand bumping against her soap slicked calf as he worked his cock.

He was saying her name deep into her, rumbling of _Keili_ and Nym. She wasn’t Shepard now, not anymore.

There was a pause as he extracted his tongue from between her legs, and bit her left ass cheek gently.

“You seem to _really_ like my ass,” she observed, trying not to pant, trying to keep her voice cool, like he wasn’t starting to undo her already. Again.

“I do,” he said. “It’s very…biteable. Turians _definitely_ lack bitable asses.” He demonstrated by sinking his teeth into her and she cried out in pain which turned soft as he rubbed away the sting with the pad of his thumb. “And… uh… do humans like to...” His voice faded for a moment, his fingers still working over the bite, the other hand still pressing gently into her cunt, not working her anymore, but just… _present_.

“Like to what, Garrus?” She knew what he was asking, but she was going to make him say it.

“Well, do you like ass play?”

Bless turians for their directness regarding all things sex. She laughed, cheek resting against the cold chrome of the wetbath wall as her face grew warm. “Some. I do,” she said.

“Could I… _kain’ak_. I’ve been wanting to lick your ass…” his subvocals flanged, and he cleared his throat. “And fuck you for… Spirits, for months.”

“Fuck, yes. All you had to do was ask.”

“I know… it just… well, we’ve just been so rushed. Fragmented. It’s something I didn’t want to push if we didn’t have time. We’ve never had time.”

She pushed off the wall and turned to face him, hand cupping one cheek. “Yeah. Just… hang on a sec.”

She trotted out into the hanger, and she could hear him make a little sound of curiosity. A few moments of rifling through a drawer of toiletries later and she was back in the shower, shivering but triumphant. She’d prepared for this-- dual chirality lube.

“I don’t care how self lubricating turians are,” she said, slapping a bottle of lube into his hand. “Actual lube is required.”

He grinned, examining the label.

“Just… go slow,” she finished.

A moment later he nudged her around and had her lean against the cold chrome wall, ass up, until his hand came around to smooth the curve of one buttox, followed by another bite. careful but relentless. She felt a cool slickness as he he invaded her ass with fingers, slow and careful. He teased her with fingers, and then his tongue, making her shudder and cry out as her body responded with a growing ache before his fingers returned, two this time, ever careful but insistent, and is other hand came around to play with her clit, rolling the bundle of nerves slowly between the pads of his fingers. Then he stood, fingers still working with finesse inside her, front and behind, and his whole body was long enough to create a shell around her curled back, her palms flat against the wall, and he pressed narrow head of his cock against her ass. She adjusted, spreading her legs a bit wider and lifted onto her toes as he slipped in, just a little at a time, and he groaned into her neck and stays like that for a moment.

“Are you okay?” He murmured, a faint tremble in his usually steady voice.

“Y-yeah,” she whispered, shivering against his carapace, even in the hot stream of water that rained down on them.

She could feel his pulse inside her, and she leaned into him, pressing her ass into his hips and the sense of fullness grew as she took him, greedy and hot and undone.

Her breath stuttered.

“Breathe, _Keili,_ ” he murmured into her ear as he slowed, waiting for her to inhale and exhale, to stay relaxed as rocked gently against him, just the barest hint of movement sending shockwaves of a dark, deep pleasure through her core.

Her hand joined his on her clit and she felt out a slow, heavy rhythm.

“Spirits… damn it you’re so tight it’s… ah…”

He sounded like the words were falling away from him, and she rocked her hips backwards a little more firmly, adjusting to the sensations and he joined her in the movement, pushing in as she pushed back, his thumb providing gentle pressure on her clit and subvocals singing out their pleasure in a persistent purr she could feel rumbling her whole body.

He sunk his teeth into her shoulder, growling low and needy and she lost herself in the rock of his body, the pinpricks of pain across her skin, the feeling of fullness, and then the ache of release as they chased each other over the edge, and she wasn’t sure who was holding who up anymore.

~~~

Later, she brought him upstairs, through a veil of earth plants and into her bed.

“Already know you don’t keep varren up here, so don’t even try to pull that one off,” he said, peering around.

She narrowed her eyes, shook her head. What was he on about now?

Garrus looked faintly embarrassed. “Sorry, but we had to hack your computer to find out where the hell you went, and the only way to get into the system was direct terminal access. I promise I didn’t sit on your bed or touch your plants or anything.”

She shrugged. “At this point I think I’ve I’ve lost a bit of my right to secrecy. Privacy you’ll have to pry out of my cold, dead hands, but… yeah. I can let you in on my secrets. Welcome to my little home.”

“Can we not talk about prying things from your cold, dead hands, please?”

“Ha! Yeah, sorry,” she grunted. “Feeling a bit morbid all of a sudden.”

She flopped onto the bed, clean, naked and still damp from the shower, and pushed the pillows to one side to make a lopsided nest for her spiky boyfriend. He followed more slowly, pulling and arranging the pillows to support his fringe and spurs.

When he settled, she rolled close so her side was pressed into his keel, and she felt him sigh a warm rush of air as their bodies reconnected. She pulled a blanket over them, and he started to purr again.

In the half twilight, he asked her for stories about herself. Just about little things about growing up on Omega.

Something about sex with him, here in the heart of the beast that she’d made her home for over two decades made her open up, uncover the ragged pieces of her heart and put them on display to be examined, gently-- rare glimpses into a regrettable past.

She had not been a good child. She hurt and hunted people, stole things, hated things, broke them. She lost things.

She told him about her teen years, running wild. About an encounter with an asari Justicar and meeting Saren when he’d come to get intel from Aria. About stealing, and hurting people, about visiting Earth. He held her and listened, sometimes made noises, traced talon-tips across her freshly washed skin.

She told him how she’d found some peace when she visited Earth for the first time, how she’d cried when she saw the ocean, saw the dessert and the jungle, breathed clean air, saw humans doing profoundly mundane human things. She’d been 17. She’d almost stayed for the few months she needed to wait in order to join the Alliance.

“Why didn’t you?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t think they could do anything to help the colonies, or stop slave-taking. They didn’t get to Mindoir on time. And look at Elysium. I guess it didn’t feel like a place for me. I didn’t feel human,” she said into his chest.

“You feel pretty human to me.” His hands squeezed into the meat of her waist, but then he just kept going, stroking and hugging her closer.

She squirmed, trying not to let herself feel ticklish.

His point made, he chuckled. “See? Squishy. Just like a human.”

“Takes a bit more than lacking a crest or a carapace to be human,” she sighed. “I’m… trying. But I get the feeling…” she lost her train of thought as he traced the tip of a mandible down her bare shoulder. “I get the feeling Cerberus might not have been the wisest place to invest my own humanity.”

“We’re doing what we need to,” he murmured. “Believe me, it's a stretch, but… that ship? _Joker_? We can’t turn this down.”

“Yeah.” she said softly, hands at his fringe again. “Thank you, Garrus. I haven’t been easy to work with… or to love. I’m going to do better.”

He chuffed into her neck, pulling her closer. “You have no idea…” he whispered. “No idea how easy it was for me to start loving you. That’s been the problem all along. I’m not walking away, no matter where you go. Cerberus, the Omega 4 relay… anywhere. We’ll work it out, beat them all. Together.”

~~~

**Garrus**

Garrus woke to the soft warmth of sleeping human spilling out of his arms, the feel of bedsheets and blankets smooth and comforting against his plates, and the utterly consuming smell of their combined bodies. He pressed his nose against Nym’s bare neck and inhaled slowly as his mind ramped up to working speed. The smell of her soap, her skin and the faint hint of _sex_ and _him_ infusing her space made him groan and pull her tight against him, burying his nose behind her ear to hoard every bit of the smell that was _them_ that he could.

She smelled like _crasi. No. Not_ crasi… he reminded himself. _Girlfriend_.

He craned his neck to check the time before sticking his nose right back behind her ear. It was obscenely early in the day cycle. They’d slept for six hours, which gave them another twelve before they needed to be at Base to pick up the gear they’d be taking with them and give the crew that would be joining them a ride to the docking bay that harbored the _Lysistrata_. That left them plenty of time for breakfast _and_ lunch, sex, transporting her fish and whatever she wanted to bring with her from the hanger, more sex… and for that _fascinating_ human concept called “cuddling.” Turians didn’t cuddle, they nested, but the concept was much the same, if a little less active than the human equivalent. Turian cuddling was basically just turians locking on to each other and not moving for two to four hours at a time. But when he and Nym _cuddled_ , they talked, they kissed, and it often lead to sex, or concluded sex. He loved cuddling. When they cuddled, he _learned_ things about her.

And the things he’d learned… His heart hurt for her. And he loved her.

Shepard shifted and murmured something untranslatable, though it sounded like it was in an asari Standard dialect. His mandible brushed the back of her neck as he smiled. She shivered, murmured again and shook her head slightly, the blanket slipping down around her bare shoulders.

Delicately as he could managed, he pulled his upper arm free and propped himself up on his elbow, his forearm still trapped under Nym’s weight. She really _was_ heavier now, since Cerberus had installed new hardware. She turned towards him in her sleep, and he studied her. Orange light cut sharp lines across her cheeks in the gloom of her loft, but he looked beyond the scars down to the structure of her face.

It was a long face, narrow, with a wide set jaw and cheekbones sharper than many of the humans he’d started to observe more carefully since falling in love with one. Her ears were small, and he noticed how they stuck out a bit, especially now that she had no hair. Her lips were wide and thick, darker than her ruddy brown skin, and he could just see the white edge of her two front teeth where her lips parted, and the faint ripple of a crooked scar that dragged down from her bottom lip across her chin. Her nose was broad… Spirits he love her nose… human noses were all stuck on the front of their faces so oddly, and she was so scent blind it was a wonder she could smell anything at all. He also loved the discolored speckles dusted across her nose and cheeks. They were called “freckles” according to Weaver, and they were apparently “cute as hell.” The hair that grew above her eyes were two shallow arches, dark, strong lines, and she used them like brow plates to shift her expression, making her easy to read. He could watch her shift from one expression to another for hours… soft and mercurial.

Her brows pulled down at the center of her forehead now as she frowned, muttered something and made a little mewling sound of concern.

“Nym? What is it, _keili_?”

She inhaled deeply through her nose, frowning further. “M’not--”

His mandibles twitched in a little smile as he peered at her. “You’re not what?”

“He wants t’see me,” she explained, voice muzzy and distant. “Wasn’t there to see it, but he wants me to, anyway.”

“Who wants you to, sweetheart?” Sweetheart. The human term of endearment slipped out quietly, like he was afraid the sound of it would wake her and he’d embarrass himself by using the wrong word. Best to try these things while she was still sleeping so he could decide if he liked them or not before he said something stupid and screwed things up entirely.

It was amazing that he was here, talking to her while she rambled in her sleep. He’d never gotten this far with anyone before… never got close to someone who matched his heart. He hadn’t expected it would ever happen, with all the varren shit in his life, with C-Sec and his father, a sick mother, his restlessness, his obsessions. He wasn’t a very good turian, but that didn’t matter now. Shepard didn’t care about any of that. So he'd keep going, keep trying things like calling her sweetheart.

He liked calling her sweetheart.

“Who wants you to see it?”

“He's in the garden,” she said. And then… “Carrots.”

“Carrots?” He’d seen the orange freeze dried root-plant on the _Normandy._ Nobody but Alenko liked carrots.

She made an resentful little noise, and her eyes fluttered open. Steely gray, almost the color of his carapace, just a shade darker. She lay still for a moment, eyes narrowed and staring up and the ceiling like she was trying to remember something, and Garrus let the rumble of his subvocals shake free from all restrains.

“Hey sunshine,” she rasped, voice thick with sleep, and she fixed her eyes on his, becoming sharply lucid in an instant.

“You were dreaming,” he said, gazing down at her with what he knew was an expression of utter foolishness.

She turned her head into his shoulder, nuzzling closer with a groan. “I keep dreaming about Eden Prime.”

“And carrots.”

“Oh gods, was I talking in my sleep?”

“Mmmhm. It was adorable. You’re not so scary when you’re sleeping.”

“At least it means I wasn’t having a nightmare. I’m scary when I have nightmares, remember?” He brushed her temple with his mouth, trying to approximate the kisses she gave him, and she hmmed and slipped an arm around his waist. “Tell me about Fisher,” she said suddenly. “Did you know him well?”

Garrus huffed, wondering what she’d been dreaming about to bring on the question. Eden Prime, she’d said.

“Yeah, I suppose. He was… a very good soldier. An exemplary leader. Dedicated to the Alliance, and whatever mission he was given. Inspired just this… insane amount of loyalty in his people.”

“I’m sensing a but...”

“But he was… always right. Even when it meant he was wrong. He was like any commander-- had to make hard choices, and people died from those choices.” Ashley Williams’ flitted across his memories. The entire _Normandy_ crew felt it when she’d been left behind on Virmire, sacrificed herself to help a bunch of salarians survive, even after making her xenophobic tendencies fairly obvious to everyone on the _Normandy_. Losing a soldier like that was a terrible blow, but her sacrifices even in the face of prejudice had elevated her in Garrus’s estimation. Fisher had lost it on Alenko at the next team briefing, when the Lieutenant had wondered aloud why it had been him who they picked up, instead of Williams. Garrus frowned, and continued. “He never looked back. Never questioned himself because his intentions were always just so… good.”

“Those are good traits in a leader.”

“I suppose. But he was so… relentless in his need to do the right thing, sometimes he couldn’t see when he was wrong. Or how a different approach might work better. Be cleaner, more direct. Save more lives. Like with Doctor Heart.”

She shifted, rolling over and tangled a leg between his knees, making him sigh with the contact, even if the subject wasn’t particularly palatable.

“Doctor Heart?” Her mouth twisted at the name.

“It was a case I was working on when I was in C-Sec. We had all these people missing, or showing up with weird medical emergencies. Turns out there was this salarian… Doctor Saleon. He grew organs inside of people, and then cut them out and sold them on the black market.”

Shepard shuddered. “Awful.”

“Sorry, not the best pre-breakfast talk, I know.”

“No, please… tell me.”

“I’d been tracking his work for months, trying to catch the guy. Almost got him too. But in the end he got away. Took some hostages on a ship. C-Sec Command wouldn’t allow us to shoot down or disable it-- too much risk of civilian casualties that close to the Citadel, and by the time we got to make pursuit he’d made an FTL jump. C-Sec closed the case. Out of our jurisdiction.” A hot little flare of rage sputtered to life in his chest, his words growing tight and slow as he tried to explain what had happened without completely losing control of his subvocals, or his temper. “Fisher found him later, as a favor to me. He’d do favors for people all the time, Fisher. It was kind of excessive, the amount of favors he did for his people. Anyway, Saleon had started another lab, a mobile one, on the ship he stole. Over fifty people had died since he left the Citadel, growing these organs that made the Doc millions of credits. I was furious. I wanted to shoot him on sight. I wasn’t with C-Sec anymore, didn’t have red tape and regulations holding me back. But Fisher said we should bring him in.”

Shepard leaned back a bit to study him, her eyes clear and expression open. He didn’t see and judgment. She understood, just as he knew she would. “What did you do?”

“I relented. What else could I do? He was my commander. We were going to take him in, but the Doc fought back and we shot him anyway. In the end, Fisher felt justified, maintained his honor. But… there was a hostage that the Doc used to cover himself. She was brainwashed, thought she was protecting the Doc, like he cared for her. It was _sick._ She died in the crossfire. And if we’d just shot him on sight… she might not have.” The anger in his subvocals rose another notch.

“Yeah, I’d have shot him on sight.”

“I knew you’d understand,” he said. “Fisher thought he’d taught me some great lesson about… Spirits, what did he say?” The memory of that day never left Garrus, made him itch with confliction every time he thought about it. “‘You never know how someone is going to react, but you can control how you respond. That’s all that really matters.’ That’s it. That was what Commander Fisher was like.”

Shepard huffed a laugh, full lips twisting into a bitter smile. She shook her head. “Or, you can take care of the problem before it starts. The Honorable Commander Fisher, huh? Just waiting for reality to warp around him so he can fit the mold of some upright hero.”

“He wasn’t that bad,” he said, brushing back against the stubble on her temple, wishing her hair was there so he could toy with it.

“You know, I always blamed him for Nihlus’ death.” Something flashed behind her eyes when she said the dead turian’s name.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I get the sense he meant a great deal to you.” He felt a thin tremor of jealousy, just a brush, and he let the feeling rise his chest, gnawing at him. He had to know… not that it would change anything. He just… needed context.

She sucked in a breath. “He did… but not like that. Not like you’re thinking.”

“How do you know what I’m thinking?”

“Come on, it’s all over your face!”

“Okay. So, was it like that?” Her steady hands on his neck, down his keel kept him grounded through the jealousy, reminded him that she was here, and his as he was her’s, regardless of past, or future.

“Would it change things, if there was something.” He felt her tense under his hands and felt a wave of defensiveness roll off of her.

“What? No! Spirits, Nym, your life is yours. Past, future. I just want to know more about you! And yes, I can admit that Nihlus Kyrik casts a long shadow. But that’s for me to deal with. It’s not about you. Or us.”

She sighed, and relaxed into his arms again. “Okay,” she said. “Okay. We met at a rough time for me. Nihlus pulled me out of some major trouble I’d gotten into with some slavers and the Alliance. Do you know Torfan?”

It was his turn to huff. “Yeah. Everybody knows Torfan. It was a major slavery outpost. The Alliance owes whoever did it a lot of favors. Wouldn’t have gained foothold over the batarians in that sector otherwise. Started a major push into their territory.”

She smiled, looking faintly embarrassed. “Well….that was me. Sort of...”

“Varren shit. Really?”

“Really. Well, me and the Alliance black ops team that had hired me, and one of my own. Most of the Alliance squad got slaughtered in the first twenty minutes of the fight, but my friend and I survived.”

“So, you and one other person wiped out 300 batarians?”

“They weren’t all batarians,” she scoffed. “This might shock you, but slavers come in all shapes and sizes. There are _turian_ slavers. Asari slavers. Elcor slavers. There were humans there too, on the wrong side of my explosives. But yes, eighty percent of of the slavers were batarian. And… a lot of innocents died in the crossfire. Too many.” Her expression was hard, and he let her ride out whatever it was that rocked through her while he took a long, careful moment to sort through this new information. It was hard to reconcile this naked little human pressed against him, someone who had just been mumbling in her sleep, with the Butcher of Torfan.

He didn’t know much about Torfan other than what he’d just spouted, what everyone knew: the monster stories that had come out of the massacre five years ago. Rumor said it was either an Alliance black ops mission, which Shepard had just confirmed, or a vigilante crew lead by a single operative, the Butcher. Turned out both were true, after all.

One thing he knew: the Butcher scared slavers. Of _course_ Shepard was the Butcher of Torfan.

She was chewing on her lip, scowling at him. “So… I’m going to take your silence as encouraging and contemplative, instead of damning and disgusted.”

“Oh! Right, yeah! I mean, that’s uh… wild.”

“It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. I lost it a bit, that day. Not sure if I ever got all of it back.”

 _Mindoir_. What she’d said about her lost family last night echoed in his head. Revenge. He wondered if she ever really stopped looking for her brother, or her mother. If perhaps the anti-slavery crusade was just an excuse to keep looking for the family she’d lost twenty-five years ago. It made his heart ache a little harder for her, and the comforting rumble of his subvocals started up again.

She smiled, hand splayed across his chest. She was learning turian sounds, even if she didn’t say so outright. She knew what that purr meant.

“So, Nihlus?” He asked.

“Right. We were talking about Nihlus. He was called in by the Council to deal with the aftermath, because they were _pissed_ that the Alliance made a move without their permission. He found me… and my friend, and a handful of the Alliance kids left alive. Bodies everywhere. I was trying to bury some of the slaves. Had the slavers in huge pyres. Instead of arresting us as a war criminals, he used his Spectre status to cover up… everything. Left the Alliance crew off of his reports. The rumors right after Torfan were wild. Collectors, super heroes, monsters. It was funny for a bit, knowing the truth. Instead of handing me over the the Council, Nihlus started training me, and put my name up as a Spectre Canandate. He’s the only reason I’m not rotting in a jail cell somewhere on the Citadel… or the reason I wasn’t executed by the Hegemony.”

“Wow,” Garrus managed. He was connecting more and more dots, little things she’d said and done over the past year that lead up to this moment. Butler was right. She’d make a terrible spy… at least in deep cover. Little lies in the moment, she could do. But covering a whole life of secrets? If he’d pressed… if he’d unwrapped her sooner... “So he was your sponsor?”

She nodded, her face set, like she was bracing against a powerful force pushing back on her. “When he died the Council didn’t know what to do with me.” Her voice didn’t waver when she said it though, but if she were turian he would have felt the grief in her subvocals. “I just kind of.. Gave up… for a while. I could have gone after Saren, but I was just sick of it. I didn’t even blame Saren, not really. I blamed Fisher for not having Nihlus’s six on Eden Prime, and I didn’t want anything to do with him. And now he’s dead too.”

“Lot of dead Spectres,” Garrus agreed. “Did you… love him?”

She laughed. “Jealous of a dead Spectre?”

“What? No! I’m… I want to understand. You said it wasn’t like that, but… I want to know how you felt about him. What you must have gone through to lose someone who meant something to you.” The back of her thumb traced across his cheek and brushed down the top of his mandible.

“It’s amazing,” she breathed. “You’re always trying to understand me. No one’s ever… tried before. Either people think they get me, and let me tell you, they’re always wrong… or they never even bother.”

He laughed. “I can relate.”

“Yeah, that’s us. _So_ misunderstood.” He gave her a poke in the side in exchange for the sarcasm, and she squirmed. Really, nothing had prepared him for a human’s capacity for wiggling.

“Nihlus? Did you love him?”

“ _Okay_ Detective Vakarian. Yeah, I loved him. It was more… devotion.” Garrus felt his heart fall a little, and was ashamed. Who she loved before… who she _still_ might love, had no bearing on them, but to be in the shadow of Nihlus Kyrik? It was not the lightest of shadows. But she wasn’t done. “Not in a romantic sense. Not really. We just… got each other. It was ambiguous, and not physical. At all. We were friends, and he was my teacher. He knew a lot about my life here, on Omega. He knew about… Aria. So yeah, there was love. But it was platonic. Anything else would have been highly inappropriate. Fraternization’s kind of frowned on between Spectre and protege. Besides, he was a bit… aloof. A hard person to get to know, even after four years of partnership, for all the things we knew about each other. But yeah, I loved him.”

“So what about kissing turians?”

“What? You're the only kissing turian I know.” It was her turn to poke him, but she hit a plate instead of his waist and he just grunted.

“When we first got together, you said you’d kissed a turian before. That’s how you knew you weren’t allergic.”

She laughed. “You thought… me and Nihlus?” He shrugged.

“It’s not an unreasonable assumption.”

“No, no. Kissing turians was a thing… sometimes. At parties. When I was a teenager. Whatever. Never went any further than ‘haha let’s see if the human goes into anaphylactic shock’ after a rousing game of ‘I’m bored as hell and way too drunk to be experimenting with incompatible biologies.’ Anyway, you’d be amazed how few turians are into humans. And… I’ve never slept with anyone but a human before you.”

“No asari?” That surprised him, given her command of their languages and her… commando armor, and her affinity for asari food.

She shook her head. “Nope. Just… can’t handle the embrace eternity thing. Don’t really like having people in my head, you know? Too much up there I don’t want to see myself, let alone someone I’m trying to get freaky with. And it’s just not… sexual for me. It’s too close to all the training I did to keep people _out_ of my head, back in the day. Kind of a turnoff when someone goes to mind meld with you and your kneejerk reaction is to psychically punch them in the brain. Or… physically… in the face.”

Something went cold in Garrus’s chest. “You used to train to keep asari out of you head?”

“Yeah,” she said. “Aria’s got enemies. Enemies want secrets. If I was ever caught by one of those enemies, Aria wanted to be sure I could stand up to a meld, keep the big stuff hidden.”

“Nym… that’s not… Did she ever--”

“No.”

Her answer was vehement and sharp, and Garrus shifted, holding by the shoulders to get a good look at her expression.

“No,” she said again, more softly. “We never melded. Aria _doesn't_ meld. She had some asari goons condition me. Eclipse Sisters, mosty. That was always fun, that training.” The way she said it didn’t make it sound fun. It sounded horrible. A gross misuse of power. “Probably not the healthiest way to raise a kid, but--”

How could she sound so… damn casual about something like that? Talk about it like it was funny, or like it had happened to somebody else?

“Nym,” he said, gathering her hand into careful, talons, starkly pale against her brown fingers. She stilled, expression puzzled. “Where I come from, adults don’t… they don’t treat children like that.” He struggled to find the right words. What could he say? He wanted to make it go away. Make it so it never happened. “I’m… sorry that happened to you. It wasn’t right. Your mind belongs to you. Just you.”

He met her gaze as she studied him for a long moment, almost wary, and for a moment he felt like they were just starting out again, like she was feral and ready to run. Then she sighed, and the tension went out of her.

“I’m from Omega…” She sounded so tired. “Here, no one has any say over anything that happens to them. Shit just happens, and you deal.”

Garrus rumbled in disagreement. “I think you’ve had a say for a long time-- Spectres, doing your freelancing. Working with me, and with the squad. Even coming back here was a choice.” The words started to tumble out of him, vehement as she had been just a moment ago. “You get a say now. With me. With everything we do, you get a say. Your body, your mind… Spirits, Nym, you do know you get a say, right? You’re the one who gets to decide what happens to you.”

Her chin lifted, fingers tightening on his talons. Her exhale was sharp, inhale shuddering and she opened her mouth but nothing came out. He watched her expression shift rapidly over the course of a moment, and in the end, she decided on a smile, soft and poignant. Her eyes held something he couldn’t read, but the depth of it stole his own breath, but a moment later her arms were around his cowl, and in a scramble of limbs and what felt painful jab of his spur to her thigh later, she was straddling his waist, fists planted to either side of his head.

“You,” she breathed, leaning over him with a bigger smile this time, and that _look_ , whatever it had meant was gone from her eyes to be replaced by a gleam that might have been tears, or joy or... “are incredible. Amazing. You’re too good for this shitty galaxy, and I don’t know who I bribed in a past life to end up here with you right now, saying those incredible things to me that will take me a lifetime for me to believe, but holy fuck, Garrus. I love you.”

“A lifetime, huh?” His heart pounded against his ribs, mandibles wide in a stupid grin as he stared up at her, glowing scars and naked chest and tight, muscled shoulders and all. He lost all control of his subvocals, purring out the words infused with meaning he knew she would never be able to hear, or understand. Well then, he’d have to show her. “Pretty long time for you not to believe me. I think I’ll wear you down eventually.”

“You know what I mean,” she said, indignant, defiant as she loomed above him. “At the moment we’ve got about… oh, three months worth of lifetime before a suicide mission, so just shut up and kiss me, asshole.”

He did, surging forward to wrap his arms around her little human body, without plates or hide to protect it, and he pressed his lips to her soft and mobile mouth and she made a happy little noise that he wanted her to keep making forever.

It was funny to him, as they kissed, hot and wet and sweet, that humans couldn’t talk while they kissed, or at least not easily. Their mouths were too busy, to conforming. The turian crest touch meant mouths were free for whispering nothings, and subvocals were always a good form of expression. Coming from another turian, “Shut up and kiss me” would have been horribly rude… but coming from a human, coming from Shepard, it was just another way to say I love you.

His subvocals flared sharply with a complicated array of emotions, moving quickly through awe for the woman who who traced her lips over the contours of his mouth, and moved through sorrow for her lost childhood and the pain she had just begun to reveal to him. Frustration too, because she was always dancing just out of reach of them belonging to each other, each twist and turn revealing a bit more but never enough. And anger, irritation at himself for not being patient with the process of loving her, for never feeling satisfied.

Was this what Sensat meant, when she said that loving a human was a constant feeling of _almost_?

There was _almost_ … but, he reminded himself, they now had _time._


End file.
